July 28, 2025 • 59 mins
What if you didn’t have to move to the woods to live a more content, intentional life?
In this action oriented conversation with Elizabeth Bruckner, author of The Homesteader Mindset, we explore how everyday habits—not remote acreage—can transform your relationship with food, home, and health.
From fermenting your first jar of sauerkraut to growing a single basil plant, Elizabeth shares practical, approachable ways to reconnect with what nourishes you. We unpack tools like habit stacking and the five-minute rule, showing how simple shifts can make homesteading practices doable—even in the busiest life.
We also talk about the fears that hold us back—like botched compost or funky ferments—and why making mistakes is an essential part of the process. Elizabeth’s honest stories (including a run-in with a rat-infested garden shed) are both funny, vulnerable and deeply reassuring: you don’t need perfection (or look like an influencer on Instagram) to start building a more resilient, joyful life.
This episode is about more than just fermentation and homemade hand soap. It’s about claiming freedom, presence, and self-trust—one small habit at a time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody and welcome back to Real Food
Stories.
We're in the heart of summerright now, which means visits to
the farmer's markets and,hopefully, growing some of your
own vegetables or herbs in yourvery own garden, whether that is
a container on your deck, a potof basil in your kitchen or a
(00:21):
larger outdoor garden.
Now, back in April, I had myguest who's going to be on today
Elizabeth Bruckner.
She was on our show to talkabout homesteading and gardening
and it was totally eye-openingto me.
We ended that episode which isepisode 116, by the way, if you
want to go back and take alisten With the realization that
(00:43):
homesteading is a mindset.
It's not about necessarilyliving off the grid in Alaska
although that is totally finetoo if you want to do that but
homesteading really is aboutmindset and habits.
So if you did catch myconversation with Elizabeth,
you'll remember how a garlicshortage during COVID led
(01:05):
Elizabeth down a completelyunexpected path From
acupuncturist to full-blownfront yard gardener,
fermentation expert and nowauthor of the Homesteader
Mindset.
We talked all about her journey, what it means to live closer
to your food and, yes, she evenconvinced me to try making my
own vinegar.
(01:25):
So today we're picking up rightwhere we left off, but going
even deeper.
Because here's the thingcreating a life that feels more
connected and nourishing isn'tjust about compost or a gaggle
of backyard chickens althoughall of that stuff is great too.
It's about small, consistenthabits, the kind that make you
(01:47):
feel grounded, more alive and,yes, more joyful.
And Elizabeth is the perfectperson to guide us through that
shift.
Whether you're a garden,curious, fascinated with
fermentation, or just trying tofigure out how to get started
with something new, this episodeis for you.
So let's dive into what itreally means to build a
(02:09):
homesteader mindset and how tomake it stick, one tiny habit at
a time.
Hi Elizabeth, how are you Sincewe have talked?
We got on the podcast back inApril of 2025, in case someone
listens to this and somewhere inthe future but we were talking
(02:30):
a couple months ago abouthomesteading, and as we talked I
mean you definitely, ifanyone's listened to that last
episode Elizabeth reminded meand inspired me that I could
actually make my own homemadevinegar.
This is part of the homesteadingphilosophy and it never really
occurred to me to do that,because I make a lot of other
(02:54):
things I bake bread, I have ahuge vegetable garden, I have
chickens, bees, the whole thingbut vinegar was not one that
made my list.
So she challenged me, and herewe are now in July, and I made
my vinegar and it came out great, and I'm using it as a kitchen
counter spray that I dilutedwith some water, and while also
(03:18):
I did that, while I was havingthings sit on my counter, I also
decided to make some sauerkrautand I made some kimchi, which I
have done in the past, but I'mnot going to lie.
There's something about makingmy own food and we can talk more
about.
This is, like you know, likegoing along with this
homesteaders mindset that I havea little trepidation about.
(03:41):
I feel like if it's not comingout of the store, out of like a
factory, then I don't know ifit's like truly safe, and so I
you know, so I have a littlehesitation.
What do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I love that we're talking about it.
So the the image that came intomy mind is I'm sure you've seen
on YouTube people puttingcucumbers behind cats and then
the cat recognizing the cucumberand jumping like crazy.
It's hilarious and not verynice.
I have not seen that, yeah, soit's just this innate knowing
that cats do not like thingsthat look sort of like snakes, I
(04:14):
think, is my guess.
And so they see it and theyjump up in the air every single
time.
Right, cats like.
Every now and then there's onedumb, dumb cat or super brave
cat that's like meh, it's just acucumber.
But this reminds me that wealso, our brains, are programmed
to look for danger, and we'realways looking for danger in the
unknown.
(04:34):
And so, because we were raisedin a generation where you got
all your food from the store, Ididn't even know I did not know
until a few years ago that mygrandma had a dairy cow.
When my brother was growing up,he was raised on raw milk.
I had no idea because we didn'ttalk about it, because we got
milk at the grocery store likeeverybody else.
And so when we look at thosepatterns, it's a beautiful thing
(04:58):
that your body is telling yoube careful, go carefully here,
make sure that you're not doingsomething that's going to harm
you.
With that being said, for me thebest way to get past that fear
of the unknown, because I wasterrified of eating something
that was going to make me die Imean, how many news stories have
we heard of someone you know,and there are some things that
(05:21):
can be kind of tricky.
For example, if you take oliveoil and you infuse it with
garlic, a lot of people areleaving that on their counter,
and then the olive oil getsrancid and sometimes botulism
can grow in that olive oil.
So, yes, it can be dangerous attimes, and so the best way to
(05:42):
surpass that is to give yourbrain more knowledge so that it
can actually identify what issafe and what's unsafe.
The first tool that you have,which is my absolute favorite
tool, because, unless you cut itoff to spite your face, your
nose is quite.
I'm so proud of myself forthrowing that little play on
words.
Your nose is the best tool thatyou could possibly have.
(06:06):
If it smells funky and not likein a sauerkraut funky, but oh
my gosh, that's like you know,that thing needs to get thrown
out into the trash, that is agood indication that you should
not be trying it.
With that being said, when itcomes to lacto-fermentation of
vegetables, it's very rare thatyou'll get something harmful or
deadly on it.
(06:27):
What I usually say to studentsand patients alike is if you see
a mold that is a fancy color,then you do not want to eat it
(06:48):
and you can just mix that intothe ferment.
But if it's brown or a reallyfancy green or really pretty
blue, take a picture of it, postit on Instagram and then throw
it away.
Now some people would even say,oh well, you can just scrape it
off.
But I like to be safe ratherthan sorry.
So the more that I recognizewhat's going on in this
fermentation.
If there's enough salt in thatfermentation, especially for
lactobacillus, what happens isthe salt inhibits all the other
(07:12):
bacteria, while thelactobacillus goes wild and
crazy, and that's the good stuff.
That's going to make you superhappy and that you buy expensive
probiotics full of it.
Now I think maybe we didn't talkabout this but I need to say it
because I'm so excited aboutyour sauerkraut.
One teaspoon of sauerkraut hasmore probiotics, in variety and
(07:32):
amount of probiotic cells, thanan entire bottle of that $68
probiotic, you know,refrigerated fancy bottle that
you get at the supermarket.
So you just made an incrediblething, an incredible vitamin for
your family.
But does that?
Does that make sense?
Like this idea that knowledgereally is power and the more we
know, the less scared scared wecan be, just like with your
(07:54):
vinegar.
You had the little acid stripsthat will tell you.
You know, there are, you know,and that costs like four bucks
on Amazon to get those strips.
Sometimes I use them when it'swith cleaning vinegar, sometimes
I don't.
I use it more out of curiositynow because I want to see what's
the level getting to.
And I do want to talk aboutvinegar a little bit because I
(08:15):
here's my vinegar bottle that Ihave to fill up.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, that's great yeah .
I should have brought mine withme to show you, but I don't
have it with me, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, no worries, I'll model mine, but mine is
empty.
It needs to be filled up.
But I want to talk about what Ido in terms of making it easier
, like reducing the friction, interms of a habit.
So I'm going to make anotherdose of my bathroom cleaner.
I have one for my bathroom andone for my kitchen and I use
these for the counters.
If I need to scrub something,I'll throw a little baking soda
(08:45):
on it and that's like myscrubber.
That's kind of like what softscrub used to be, but there's no
chemicals involved.
And what I do here is I labelit bathroom cleaner.
Sadly, it's in a plastic bottleright now, which I don't
recommend.
I think get a glass bottle, butthen on the label you can write
what is in it.
So for me, I don't want to haveto remember my formula, but I
want it to smell the same eachtime.
(09:06):
So I'll write vinegar pluswater, h2o, that's half and half
, half vinegar, half water, andthen I write down the essential
oils that I put in it For mybathroom I do five drops of
rosemary, five drops of tea treeand then 15 drops of lemongrass
to give it that lemonyrass,that lemony smell, and so now I
don't have to think about it.
It makes it easier, and so Ithought I'd bring this over to
(09:28):
tell you about it, because a lotof people think like, oh, you
got to make the vinegar and it'sgoing to take all day, and no,
it takes.
What did it take for you interms of mixing it every day?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Oh, it took me a few seconds to just to make sure
that it was.
Things were submerged, andyou're really not.
I mean, it's just sitting onyour counter, yep Right,
fermenting, and like I mean,same with the sauerkraut and the
kimchi.
I mean it's really you justneed to, you know, put your eyes
(10:03):
on it for a minute or two everysingle day, but it really is
doing the work for you, so it'snot, there's nothing really
heavy duty that you have to dowith it and it's, and it's.
I mean, you know my sauerkraut,I mean it all tastes so much
better than when you buy it fromthe store also.
But I want to go back.
I agree with you with, withjust getting educated, that we
(10:24):
really do need to have someeducation, right, and I think
just at the basic level.
If something doesn't smell right, don't even, because now I'm
remembering that when I startedmaking my sauerkraut, I made two
jars of it.
One of them was going down thatpath.
I'm not sure why, though,because both of them were
(10:44):
sitting side by side on thecounter and I could smell it and
like, and I, I, I smelled itafter a couple of days.
I'm like, this does not smellright at all, and I'm not taking
my chances.
The other one came out fine,and that one's been great, but
the other one, you know but thefirst one was not didn't smell.
Right Now I I could take aguess as to what was happening,
(11:06):
but I'm not still quite sure.
Yeah, so anyway.
Fermenting is is on my list ofhomesteading things, sort of
like at the more, so at thebottom.
I want to.
I want to, though, make thismore of a habit for myself, and
the counter spray is great.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I love it too.
You can actually make vinegarwith wine as well, and I've done
that successfully once.
And then I tried putting amother in it, which a mother is
kind of like a.
It's a mass of bacteria thatforms in another type of
fermentation.
So sometimes you'll see yourlike your brine.
I have a lemon brine where Iferment lemons and then use them
(11:48):
for cooking and stuff, andthere was like this kind of blob
at the bottom.
That's the mother, and so youcan take that and you can put it
in other things.
I put it in my wine and it didnot like it, and so I also did
the sniff test and I'm like thisis not good.
This one has to go, and I thinkyou have to.
For me there's a you know, II've really I'm a recovering
(12:11):
perfectionist and so I have tobe really okay with you cannot
learn unless you make mistakes,like it's not that that
sauerkraut was ruined and youare a failure and you should
just never do it again.
It was like no, you trustedyour instincts.
You trusted that your body wastelling you what you needed, and
now you can very gently behappy that 50% of the sauerkraut
(12:31):
is doing well and every.
I mean, I had slimy onions onceand I don't need to kind of go
into what did I do wrong and Ijust, for some reason, the
onions did not agree with myferment that time.
And then I love this idea ofmaking this, bringing this up to
a higher up on your prioritylist, because it's such an easy
thing to do.
And that's why I'm so excited totalk about habits with you,
(12:55):
because people don't realizethat once you get some habits,
it becomes joyful, it becomes apleasure, it becomes not
difficult.
And I will say the first secret, if we can start just with this
, is something you said fromyour example.
You told me that we're going tohave another podcast, and so
you had accountability.
We were going to be talkingabout your vinegar, and so it
(13:15):
definitely.
When we have accountability, Iam known for calling a friend up
and being like hey, how are youdoing on your exercise?
Do you want to text me everyday?
And we'll just, you know, getkind of connected on it or
whatever habit that I'm tryingto form.
Accountability goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Absolutely.
Oh yeah, there's no way I wasgoing to show up on this podcast
without first having made thatvinegar.
I'm like I have to make thevinegar because Elizabeth gave
me the recipe and I was curiousto make it too and it came out
great, but I definitely wantedto have it made.
I didn't want to come on hereand say sorry I didn't make it,
(13:52):
I got lazy, or anything likethat.
No-transcript super important,I think.
I think it definitely helpswith habit formation.
But I just want to just quicklygo back, just in case some of my
listeners have not listened tothe first episode, because we
(14:12):
talked about this concept in thefirst episode of homesteading.
So I just want to remind people, or if they haven't listened,
what homesteading is for you,because I think when we started
our conversation the last time,I had it in my head that you
were living in like some remotearea of California and you were
(14:32):
living off the land and that's,you know, that's what I thought
of homesteading is that you'rereally kind of off grid off land
, you know, and you're kind ofoff grid off land, you know, and
you're surviving this way, andyou showed me that that's not
necessarily how it has to be andthat homesteading is more of a
mindset, that there's a mindsetaround it.
(14:53):
So can you just tell mylisteners just quickly you know,
just to catch them up, whereyou live and what your
homesteading is like.
And then I want to talk aboutthe habits and how to make this
more of a habit.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Absolutely so.
I do have some eyeliner on.
I did not go outside, grab somebark, burn it and then put it
on my eyelids.
I am a Southern California girland I live where I can see
telephone poles outside of mywindow.
I live in the suburbs.
There's lots of cement andthere are lots of conveniences
(15:33):
here.
So homesteading doesn't have tobe living off grid, which I you
know.
Kudos to those that do it.
And let me tell you, if someonegave me a hundred acres of land
, if one of your listeners wouldlike to gift me with a hundred
acres, I will take it and I willmake them vinegar until their
dying day, happily.
But for now I live in thisbeautiful suburb with lots of
(15:54):
lovely neighbors and I didn'teven know what homesteading was.
What I've come to see that it isis modern homesteading, which
is different than that livingoff grid with fighting off bears
, is a practice of cultivatingresilience through a more
intentional way of living.
If I had to say it in onesentence, that would be it.
It is a practice of cultivatingresilience through a more
(16:16):
intentional way of living, andthis includes reducing toxic
load in our homes, like makingyourself vinegar to clean your
house instead of even, insteadof buying the thing that says
organic but has 500 ingredientsthat you spray on your on your
counters.
It involves building our gutmicrobiome with nutrient dense
foods like sauerkraut.
It involves growing ediblelandscaping, which you're
already doing, I'm already doing.
(16:37):
And for those of you that think, oh, I can't do it because I
live in an apartment, my book,the Homesteader Mindset, talks
about that as well.
Like you're able to do itanywhere.
There are many different spokesto homesteading and we're just
connecting deeply with our owninnate resourcefulness.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, so that is very different than just the general
concept of homesteading, right,that someone can do this
anywhere.
Yes, it doesn't have to be on100 acres of land, it can be in
an apartment, it can do.
It can be what you can do foryourself that feels good for you
, right?
So, okay, so let's now go intothe creating a habit around this
(17:21):
, because it definitely takessome commitment and some habit
formation and to get to getgoing and to realize that this
is a benefit for you, right?
So let's, so, let's talk abouthow you created your habits.
I.
I mean, was there a moment whenyou realized that you were no
(17:45):
longer like trying to livedifferently, that this just
became like part of your dailyliving?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You know, I think it goes back to my medical training
and then my language learninghobby, because that is when I
learned that the brain createshabits and loves patterns and
loves novelty and repetition,which sounds like opposites, but
that's not true.
And so, as I was learninglanguages, I'd always been a
neuroscience nerd.
(18:14):
I always in the clinic, in mygraduate school work, at the
clinic in school and then in myown clinic, I always worked on
emotional issues andneurological issues because they
fascinated me.
And so then, when I startedlearning languages and I had to
learn how to create habits in it, you know I was working, I had
a, I had a clinic that I wasrunning.
I didn't have time to justspend hours upon hours upon
(18:36):
hours of learning languages, andso I started reading up on
habit creation and habit for any.
Actually, a friend of mine, apolyglot that speaks, I think,
like five or six languages, hesent me a book after I gave a
presentation as a gift.
It was called the power ofhabit by Charles Dewey, and this
book blew my mind becausenumber one the nerdy science
(18:57):
geek in me, could learn allabout the different parts of the
brain and where routine andhabit connect, and it also got
me on this idea of oh, I coulddo this for patients, because
patient compliance was somethingthat I was constantly
questioning.
Why aren't my patients doingthis?
They come in, they feel better,they want to feel better.
I give them some ideas, they gohome, they don't do them.
(19:18):
They come back in feeling badand then they feel better after
the treatment.
But they could feel so muchbetter.
And I knew it wasn't a case oflazy or unintelligent.
These were smart, creative,successful people that were
coming to my clinic.
Why weren't they able to do it?
They have the same 24 hours aseveryone else.
So do I, and that's when Istarted realizing that a lot of
(19:40):
them are stuck in the paralysisof I want to do it, but I have
these three myths it's going totake up too much time, I don't
have time, it's too complicatedand I don't have enough money.
And so I started working,firstly with the I don't have
time, Like is that true?
Is it true that we don't havetime?
I could easily convince youthat I do not have time, but
(20:00):
when we look at languagelearning, they talked a lot
about dead time.
I really didn't like that word.
It sounded kind of morbid.
I don't want to be hanging outwith zombie time, so I re-coined
it found time.
And what found time is isanytime you're pulling away from
what's happening in the presentmoment and reaching for a
distraction.
So how many times a day do youpick up your phone and you just
(20:22):
check text for text messages,even though you're not expecting
a text message?
Or you find yourself scrollingand then 15 minutes later, or,
gosh, two hours later, you'relike what have I done?
That is found time and I don'twant to take away the reward
that you get for checking yourtext messages and seeing a cute
picture of your grandkid.
I absolutely don't want to takethat away from you.
(20:43):
And we can add something to thatfound time and create habits.
So when that light bulb wentoff for me which was habit
chaining, habit stacking, thefive minute rule when that light
bulb went off, I realized thatI could learn languages with
five minute increments a day.
And so when I bumped intohomesteading, which you and I
(21:05):
talked about how I accidentallybecame a homesteader in the
April episode, it was um, it wasa light bulb moment for me.
I already knew I know how tocreate systems, so I'm just
going to translate, pun intended.
I'm going to translate mylanguage learning habits into
homesteading habits, and I juststarted one step at a time.
So I'll give you an example ofhabit stacking and habit
(21:26):
chaining, because that's whatI'm talking about.
People are like what does thatmean?
Habit stacking is when you takea habit that you already have
and you put another habit on topof it.
So one example is during adaily commute to work, you might
want to search for podcasts onhealing herbs in the kitchen,
and then during your dailycommute, you just click one
before you get in the car Well,before you turn it on, of course
(21:48):
, you don't want to get anytickets and you listen to that
podcast on healing herbs in thekitchen.
For me, I did this with castoroil.
I wanted to know everythingabout castor oil.
Everyone talked about itsbeauty properties and what it
does for the skin.
I'm like, yeah, but I've heard,there's more.
(22:09):
I've heard there's more.
And so I just listened to everypodcast that existed on castor
oil for a couple of weeks andthen I got fairly good at
understanding what castor oildoes scientifically.
So that's habit stacking.
You take something that's kindof a mindless task and then you
add another one on top.
Habit chaining is when you takea habit that already exists and
you do a habit before it, a newhabit before it or a new habit
after it.
So for me, after washing mydishes today, I wanted to think
(22:31):
of a very current habit that Ichained.
I usually do one smallhomesteading task, one like five
minutes or less, and in thiscase I was like well, my kefir
is good, so I don't need tocheck on my kefir.
I really I would.
It's super hot here.
We need to stay hydrated.
I'm going to make an herbalinfusion.
So the garden herbal infusionis something that I've coined,
(22:54):
but it's just herbs.
You throw them in a in a bigpitcher of water, which I see
it's show and tell.
Today, heather, I brought thesespecifically for you, so I have
a giant mason jar it's about ahalf gallon mason jar with a
plastic lid that has a spout anda handle.
I got that at masontopscom.
I love that company and so nowI have this canister for water.
(23:18):
I went out to my gardenbarefoot and I took my scissors
and clipped off lemon verbena, alittle bit of rue, which is the
herb of grace.
I love learning about thefolklore around herbs, so if I
seem a little more dignified orgraceful today, that's why If I
don't, then you have no idea howungraceful I am normally
because herb of grace helped me.
(23:40):
I did a few blooms of marigoldsand then just a small snipping
of rosemary.
I put it in some water.
I was standing barefoot in mygrass while I was doing this,
and this was just the one.
It was less than five minutes,just like your stirring of the
vinegar, and this did somethingcalled function stacking in
permaculture.
So function stacking inpermaculture is you have a
(24:02):
product or some behavior or arelationship in your life and
you stack functions on it.
In the case of this, I hadsunlight therapy.
When your eyes see naturalsunlight, they create enzymes
for your body.
I had barefoot grounding so Iwas getting a different
electrical charge from theground, the garden reward,
(24:24):
because a lot of times gardenerswill work really hard in their
garden and then they won't goout and enjoy it, and instead I
gave myself a little dopamine oflike look what I created while
not doing much work.
And then of course, the herbalinfusion for easy hydration.
So I hope that gave you kind ofan idea of how I started
creating habits.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yes, no, that all really makes sense.
And I think what I was thinkingwhile you were saying that is
that I think, for me at least,all goes back to my why.
You know, like, why I even wantto do this in the first place,
and rather than thinking like,well, someone on social media
(25:03):
said it was cool, or you knowlike, it's kind of like a thing
to do, but for me at least,right, making herbal infusions
with water is.
Or growing my garden, making myown sauerkraut these are so
important, like innatelyimportant, to me, that it brings
(25:26):
me a lot of motivation, becauseI know that growing my own
tomatoes, for example, andpicking them and eating them
right away is not only justsuper nutritious, they taste
better.
Super nutritious, they tastebetter, and it gives me a lot of
really good feelings of joy todo that.
(25:47):
And so that for me, also startswith, like the why am I even
doing this all in the firstplace?
Yeah, how do you feel aboutthat?
Just starting with your why, toget people who are maybe just
(26:08):
still going to argue that I amtoo busy, I am burnt out, where
am I finding the time to do this?
And I get it.
I mean, believe me, I could siton my email on social media,
which I, you know, such a love,mostly hate relationship with,
and I mean you could kill 30, 60minutes at a time, which could
go, then, towards doingsomething more useful and joyful
(26:29):
.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yes, I think that this is such an important point
that you bring up because Iremember in my forties I read
okay.
So the way that my brain worksis I have a problem, I need to
find a solution, I'm going toresearch that solution and so I
typically will get on an idea.
I had someone that was in myfamily that was sick with cancer
(26:51):
and we were putting her throughhospice care and we were
caregiving, and so I read everybook on death and dying because
I wanted to make sure that I didit right.
But I was also super curious.
My why was how can I give herthe best dignity of life into
her new transition as possible?
I did the same with timemanagement.
I thought if I could only getthe right bullet journal and the
(27:13):
right highlighters and theright stickers, then my life
would be just amazing and Iwould get everything done that I
wanted to get done.
And what I realized is that Ihad an unsolvable riddle because
my time management had nothingto do with lack of self-care as
a priority, so my prioritieswere screwed up.
It doesn't matter what I'mgoing to do with time management
(27:36):
.
If you don't know what you want, you will not get it, I promise
you.
And so I, in my forties, didn'tknow what I wanted.
I knew that I wanted to do allthe things that you're supposed
to do to be a good healthcarepractitioner.
I wanted to make sure that Iwas top-notch in my clinic and
that I was knowledgeable aboutwhat I was treating.
I wanted to make sure that Iwas healthy, because I got to be
a good role model, et cetera,et cetera, and that is what
(27:57):
landed me with a chronic illness.
I didn't have self-care as apriority, and I also thought
that self-care meant exercisingwell, eating well and sleeping
well.
I thought it was all the stuffthat the fitness magazines tell
you, and what I realized is thatI had missed out on the delight
(28:18):
and pleasure of living.
That sounds so insane that Iforgot to be happy.
But then, when I got sick andall of my everything was taken
away my profession, my abilityto stand on my own or think on
my own or finish full sentencesit got really clear that
(28:39):
self-care was more than justsleeping okay, eating okay,
resting okay.
And so my why for homesteading?
Because it happened during thepandemic and I was panicked.
I'm like, well, I can't findfood.
This is not good.
This is really concerning to me.
My why was resilience?
Being able to do something, noteverything.
(29:00):
I don't have enough food tolast five winters, but I do have
the resilience to know whatbroccoli looks like when it's
coming out of the ground, knowwhat a seed needs and how.
If it's a bigger seed, it needsto go a little farther down in
the ground.
If it's a lighter seed, it goeson the top.
It also gives me this feeling offreedom.
It also gives me this feelingof freedom and I'm not saying
(29:21):
freedom in the like I'm freefrom all responsibility, I can
just be on my own.
It's not the island unto myselfwhich I thought in my 20s was
what I had discovered Like, oh,I'll just be isolated and do
everything myself and there'llnever be a problem.
It turns out, we're socialbeings.
You need to be with others.
(29:42):
So this freedom is more of thisability to.
I have things that I can sharewith others and I have needs
that can be fulfilled from myfellows, and so it connects me,
the freedom to connect with mycommunity in a more meaningful
way.
And then the last why that Ihave, which I think is more
important than any why, quitehonestly and it's going to sound
maybe hedonistic, but it's not.
(30:03):
That is contentment.
There's nothing more fulfillingto me than going out barefoot
and snipping some of my gardenand noticing the abundance,
noticing the health that I'mgoing to give my family,
noticing that there's a goodchance that I'm going to stay
really healthy and not haveanother crazy chronic illness
(30:25):
that my husband's going to haveto take care of me.
He's getting a resilient,strong, healthy wife.
My family members are happy.
When I'm content, the worldbecomes a more content place
because I'm able to givegoodness, I'm able to share
goodness, because I have it.
I'm filling up on it.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
That all really makes sense and it just just makes me
think of like I mean, these areall your values, right?
So it would almost be importantto do a like a values exercise
right To, to just see what'sreally important to you in life.
And I love the like, thecontentment part.
Part because same for me when Iwalk into my garden and now my
(31:05):
garden's well-growing right nowand I don't have to do a lot
with it.
But I love nothing more thanwalking in there in the
afternoon and just kind ofstrolling around and taking a
little, you know, just taking alittle mental check at
everything, seeing what'sgrowing, seeing what do I need
to snip or pull, and thatcreates so much contentment for
(31:26):
me and that's one of my valuesas well is, if maybe not the
most important value, is justthat feeling of being content,
and I get it from my garden andin this, I guess, homesteading
mindset.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
The homesteading mindset I saw this morning when
I was watering my mullein.
There it's in full bloom rightnow and there were about nine
bees on it and I didn't thinkabout this until you were
talking, but I was just.
You know, honeybees are kind ofmellow and so they don't mind
me getting up close and taking apeek at them, but they had so
much pollen connected to theirlittle legs, like one had way
(32:06):
more pollen than the rest and itwas just.
You know, this is not something.
Yeah, you can go look at thaton YouTube.
But to be in the sunlightwatching nature and seeing how
the fact that I planted thatmullein two years ago is feeding
these bees and they're creatingincredible honey, that's just
this amazing circle of life thatI get to be a part of.
What better meditation can youhave?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yes, and the circle of life?
I mean right, it all comes backfull circle.
You grow things, you cancompost, which I do a lot.
That compost then turns intodirt that goes into my garden
and it all is a big circle oflife, which is another thing.
I find fascinating that I canhave some control over that.
(32:50):
I can do my part in that andthen also just grow things that
are so nutritious and good forme.
So it's all.
Yeah, it all goes back to, Ithink, to this why and to what
we really value, and I thinksome people don't even realize
that sometimes they're not evenclear on how things grow in a
(33:12):
garden.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I wasn't yeah, I absolutely was not.
I didn't know I was.
You know, I was 40 years oldand didn't know what broccoli
looked like.
And that sounds so sad, but Ilike to say it, because now when
people come to my house andthey see that there are 50
things growing and I reallyhaven't done anything for, you
know, two weeks on my garden andit's just doing quite well,
(33:34):
they think that I've alwaysknown how to do that and I
learned it very quickly throughfive minute exercises, five
minute habit stacks.
So can I ask you a questionabout that?
I want to go back to thevinegar because I really like
talking about a habit that'sreally fresh in your, in your
mind.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
You've decided, you've got your accountability.
You know that we're going to bechatting.
You know that you've got to doit.
Did you habit chain or habitstack to get that, to get that
vinegar going?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Well, let's see.
I mean, I thought, while I'mmaking the vinegar, I'm going to
make the sauerkraut too, andI'm also going to make the
kimchi, because while things aresitting on my counter, why not
do all of it?
Yeah, so you have it stacked,yeah, so I have it stacked that
way, and so then, every singleday, I was checking all of them.
(34:26):
How did you remember?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
to check them.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Well, they were right in my I'm in my kitchen a lot
cooking, so I mean they're likekind of they were sort of right
in front of me, in front of myface, so I could see them pretty
well.
And I even I even went up to wehave a place in Maine I drove
up there.
I took them all with me becauseI didn't want to leave them
alone for two.
(34:51):
You know, we were only up therefor about a week, but I didn't
want to leave them alone, and sothey came with me, and then we
came back, and so I think justhaving them right in front of me
in the kitchen was the best wayto remind me.
If I didn't have them in mykitchen, I probably would have
put a reminder on my phone in mycalendar just to ding me.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah.
So what you did was you made iteasy and accessible, which is
one of the ways to create habits, and you made it attractive
because it looks pretty in a ina.
You know it looks.
It's ferments are really prettyand they're fun to see them.
You know growing and changingcolors and all that stuff.
And so these are two ways thatthe book atomic habits talks
(35:37):
about this.
In my book as well, I talk aboutit because I translate it into
homesteading.
But making it attractive,making it easy, making it easy
for you to remember.
So for me, a lot of times myhomesteading tasks will connect
to like before I brush my teeth,it's bedtime, I'm about to
brush my teeth, I'm letting thedog out, I have to walk through
the kitchen to let the dog outand in that moment I'm going.
(35:57):
Oh, I probably should check onmy kefir and see how it's doing
and if it needs to go into ahotel or if it needs to have a
new ferment.
That moment it takes about fiveminutes, I quickly tend to my
kefir and then off I go to bed.
But it's connected, it's easy,it's accessible and it's
attractive because my kefir isreally cute on my counter.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Right, yeah, no, it was nice.
I had about four jars going onmy counter and that was kind of
you know, curious, and peoplewere wondering what was going on
in there, and so it was.
Yeah, that definitely kept myattention with it.
Now it's interesting, though,now that we're talking about
this so I made everything and Ihaven't done it again.
(36:38):
I haven't started like a nextround, and we're talking.
I'm like why haven't I starteda next round of the vinegar and
I will.
So now that we're talking aboutit again.
I'll have to have you back onin a couple months.
Be accountable.
Yeah, so I could see how youcould get into a habit and how
(37:01):
it might change, get me out of ahabit.
But I think I but I also, nowthat we're talking about this
out loud I mean, I have my spray, I have my sauerkraut.
Still I don't I'm not finishedwith it and I'm not finished
with the kimchi.
So it's I'm not feeling maybethat motivated to start it again
because I still I'm.
I have it.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Yeah, you've got plenty.
On supply, I don't do acontinuous thing of vinegar.
I do a continuous thing ofkefir, because it really helps
my gut.
It's just fantastic for my bodyand we go through a lot of it.
We make ice cream with kefir,we make sour cream and like a
creamy yogurt, and then also atzatziki like a Greek chip dip,
(37:45):
although I use cucumbers for thechip.
But I'm not constantly doingall of them.
There's kind of ebbs and flows.
I would say that one thing thatreally helps and it's kind of
like accountability, but it'salso just a motivation is
allowing yourself to talk aboutthese passions.
So when people come over to myhouse, they will inevitably get
(38:07):
fed some sort of fermentedproduct from my house.
Or we will go out and I'll putmy hands in the compost and let
them smell it, because it'squite remarkable what rotten
food can smell like once it'sbecome compost.
Or we'll walk around the gardenand I'll just show them.
We'll just taste some of thefood.
And so, because I have such apassion for it, I'm continually
(38:31):
renewing that passion byteaching, and I think that's
what you do with podcasting too.
Every time you're sitting downwith someone, you're getting new
ideas and right now you're like, oh, it might be a good idea to
try some more vinegar.
You know, whatever I'm going tomake the same here.
And it's also kind of remarkablewhen somebody has an issue and
then because kefir believe it ornot, homemade kefir can be used
(38:53):
as a lubricant for women.
So I have some some friendsthat are having difficulty post
post menopause and they had noidea that this can actually help
balance your hormones.
It's, you know, it's a oneingredient and it's also going
to help your gut microbiome andalso the microbiome on your skin
and in your groin.
And so it's amazing that whenyou start learning more right,
(39:16):
knowledge is power then you go,oh, this could help this person
and this could help that person.
And the more you teach, themore you get inspired to
continue to learn more yourselfand also to continue to grow and
to have that fermentationstation is what I call it.
You had a little fermentationstation.
Now did you use a bowl to keepit from spilling over?
For the kimchi?
(39:36):
Nobody.
I think kimchi and sauerkrautdon't really spill over much.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, I didn't have a bowl.
They didn't.
They don't usually spill over,so nothing no, nothing was was
spilling over, so I didn't feelthe need to do anything like
that.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, so for those that are listening, typically
when you're doing sauerkraut,kimchi, a lot of the cabbages
don't get super fizzy.
But with other things, likepickled carrots, you take some
carrot sticks, put them in abrine.
A brine is just salt water,which is two cups water to one
tablespoon of salt.
That's the one that I use foreverything.
(40:13):
It's a bit salty, but then youdon't have a problem.
You can look online and findout specific ones, but I'm not
going to do that.
And then if you have that andyou put your carrots in it and
then you close it tightly with acanning jar, you just fingertip
tight Every day you have toburp it.
You have to open it up and burpit.
Well, a lot of times withthings other than sauerkraut,
(40:34):
like the carrots or sometimesthe onions if you do pickled
onions, which tastes great onhoagies back East here they're
called, I think, submarinesandwiches subs you know they'll
overflow, and sometimes evenyou do it morning and night.
You do this burp, it'll justfizzle out.
And so a lot of times we'llhave like a very big.
It's like not a fruit bowl, butit's like a fruit plate and
(40:55):
it's got a lip on it.
So it's like a very small bowland that just keeps it from
spilling all over the place.
For those of you that want to be, want to not have a mess.
Now, for those of you that wantto trick your husband into some
fun prank, you can wait a dayand then have him open up the
ferment, which I did not do onpurpose.
But my husband, I was away, Idid not take my cat, my
(41:17):
sauerkraut with me.
I'm like honey.
Can you please, can you pleaseburp these?
And he wrote oh my gosh, theferments fermented me and he
just had like a.
He didn't know what to do.
So if you're, if you're openingit and they're starting to fizz
, open it quickly, because ifyou don't it becomes this
fountain and it will be veryfunny.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
It'll make for some funny YouTube videos.
That's very funny, yeah.
So I think the takeaway is Imean, things happen like that,
right, mistakes happen and it'sokay.
It doesn't mean that you failedor it didn't work or you can't
do this, you don't know how todo it.
This is reminding me of when Iwas up in Maine.
I decided to I have a sourdoughstarter.
I bake bread a decent amountand I thought I'm going to make
(42:02):
my own sourdough starter to haveup there so I don't keep
bringing my one, my very oldstarter that I have had for a
long time, back and forth.
And so I made a new sourdoughstarter up there and it takes a
couple of days.
Same.
You have to leave it on thecounter, you have to feed it
every single day, dump it outand then one day I think on like
(42:23):
the sixth day, it completelyexploded.
I think on like the sixth dayit completely exploded.
I was like this is not justlike.
I mean, it is like.
I mean I woke up the nextmorning it was just all over the
counter and which is good thing.
I mean that means it's likealive and well and it's and it's
not dying, but it was, you know, just one of those.
I wasn't expecting, yeah things, that that happened.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
So it's a Hulk.
You got the Hulk of sourdoughthat day.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yes, it was pretty funny.
So we're talking about a lot ofthings that might sound
complicated to some people, likekefir.
Meanwhile, that's one thing Ihave never made and that's next
on my list is that we're talkingabout kefir.
I want to make that made andI'm that's next on my list is
that we're talking about kefir.
I want to make that, and thiscan feel overwhelming to some.
(43:13):
You know, like I'm talkingabout sourdough, starter,
sauerkraut and and, but let'ssay, someone who's listening is
curious homestead or curious,you know, but they're just
feeling a little overwhelmed.
What, what's?
What is one like ridiculouslysimple thing that you feel like
they could start with, or even ahabit, you know, or you know
(43:36):
just either one like a, anactivity, like a growing
something, or or a habit thatthey can start with.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I'll give you two, because these can be done in the
city, in a rural area, in thesuburbs.
The first is when you're at thegrocery store, buy a basil
plant.
They almost always have somesort of basil plant there.
Just buy a little basil plant,put it on your windowsill, water
it every now and then and snipoff one or two leaves and throw
(44:08):
it in your water every day, orwhen you walk by, just touch it
with your hands gently and get alittle smell of basil, so that
you have something living inyour home.
You mentioned the last timethat we talked like well, you
have plants behind you now.
I never did before because Ikilled all of them, but I slowly
learned how to commune withplants.
(44:28):
So that is your first.
Just go out and get a littlebasil plant or a little rosemary
plant and just put it in yourwindowsill.
It probably will not.
Well, basil will not liveforever, unless it's blue Thai
basil, which is a perennial, butyou're going to need another
one.
But for the few weeks or monththat you have it, you'll start
getting used to knowing like oh,if I don't water this plant, it
(44:49):
gets a little wilty, it needs alittle more water If it's
starting to get yellow or it'sstarting to look a little like
it's getting mushy, then it hastoo much water and you're just
getting to know what it's liketo tend to another living being.
So that's the first one.
The second one is let's say youwere like me and you're 40
(45:10):
years old.
This was when I was 40 yearsold.
You're well into your career.
You're super, super busy, youbuy all the organic good food,
but you've never cooked yourself.
It's just not what you do.
I recommend learning how to bakea chicken.
It's so simple when I firststarted learning how to cook,
which is pretty much how I cooknow.
And it's so funny becausepeople always ask me for recipes
and I'm like but I'm not a cook.
But I am right, cause now Iknow how to cook.
All of my recipes are typicallythree, three steps or less.
(45:34):
So I'm making an online courseon kefir because I love kefir so
much and I want people tounderstand the biological,
medicinal properties of kefir aswell as how to do it.
It takes five minutes to do it.
So everything, every recipethat I have in there is three
steps or less.
And it's not.
It wasn't on accident.
It was when I was firstlearning how to cook, I would go
to online and look up recipesand if it had more than three
(45:55):
steps I'm like there's no wayI'm going to do this and out it
went.
So for baking a chicken, thethree steps are buy a good
chicken from a reputable companyLike.
There's a place called PrimalPastures which is about an hour
from my house.
I visited the farm.
Believe it or not.
Good farmers will let you seehow they're taking care of their
animals, so I buy my chickensfrom them.
(46:17):
When I wash it, I just wash itin water and I pat it dry, I put
some chicken fat on it, I throwsome salt and maybe another
seasoning like pepper orchipotle.
If I want to go wild and crazy,I stick it in the oven, I think
at 375, for 90 minutes 60 to 90minutes and now I have five
meals that are ready andaccessible.
(46:39):
So those are the two quickiesFor me that originally sounded
insane Like, oh my gosh, I gotto buy a chicken, I got to find
out where it is.
Just buy a chicken to start,and then you can eventually work
on getting a better chicken andthen just work on covering it
in some sort of fat and puttingit in the oven.
And if you forget to do saltbecause, oh my gosh, this is
your first time and you onlylistened to this podcast once
(47:01):
that is okay, you can salt itafterwards.
But learning to get connectedto how to make fast food, I
think, is one of the most modernhomesteading things you can do.
These are fast food.
Yesterday my husband came homefrom work.
I was busy doing something.
Typically, I like to havedinner for us, but instead he
took some pasta that I hadcooked and put a little olive
oil on and kept it in the fridgeas a leftover.
(47:23):
He chopped up a garlic and atomato, put it in a frying pan
and then use the chicken that Ibaked yesterday, and that was.
It took all of five minutes tomake food that was way more
nutritious than if he had stoodin line at a fast food
restaurant, and let me tell youI used to do that in my thirties
.
I would go to like thehealthiest fast food place
because I didn't know how tocook.
(47:43):
And so those are.
I would say two things.
I think probably buying thebasil plant sounds a little less
complicated, huh that?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
might be the first one to try.
Yeah, I think that's a greatidea, though.
I mean just getting a plantlearning how to grow something,
even if it's one basil plant onyour counter.
I think it is such a simple,easy idea and you can feel
successful at it.
Yeah, right, and then maybe youcan get more basil and you know
(48:11):
you can finally get enough thatyou're making some pesto or
like I just did yesterday.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
And that's the secret .
Right, you had said it earlier.
The secret is you start withone thing I'm going to make
vinegar and then you're like,well, well, I'm here, I might as
well make sauerkraut.
I've done it, but you know,that's that is.
It's this rabbit hole that yougo down, this rabbit hole of
contentment and joy that you godown and you're like, oh,
sourdough, doesn't sound likesomething that's interesting to
me.
But she did talk about havingripe, ripened tomatoes.
(48:40):
That sounds kind, yeah, and Ithink, just also having feeling
the confidence to do it.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I think that that I know for me, for a lot of my
clients, that fear of cookingthat and which I think really
translates into a fear ofdisappointing people or not
being good enough, or lettingpeople down or and it's, we got
to let that go right.
(49:12):
We have to.
We make mistakes, we get backup and we try again.
So I wanted to ask you aquestion, just coming going
along with that are there anyhabits or any any things that
you started that you feel liketoes totally flopped, like that.
You're like I'm never doingthat again and what did you
(49:33):
learn from that?
Like what, what would be like atakeaway?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
okay, yeah, there's lots of them that I flopped and
I love that.
I do want to piggyback on whatyou said.
Your self-worth is notconnected to the outcome, like
your self-worth is innate.
It is.
You are given.
You're worthy, that's it.
And when you start looking atthese experiments is what I call
them with the eye of ascientist, it becomes less
(49:57):
personal.
So for my husband and I, when Isit down and I try a new meal
which is three steps or less,I'll go what do you rate that on
a scale of one to 10?
And he'll be like oh, I thinkthat's a six and I'm like really
, I think it's like a four andit's not.
It's not a, it doesn't denotewhat my self-worth is.
It's.
Am I going to do this recipeagain or am I going to try again
and tweak it a little?
So, with that being said, I gota big fat zero on one of my
(50:19):
composting adventures.
My friend came over to staywith me for a few days and I'm
like you know, it'd be great,let's go and take.
We had this patch of sweet peasthat sweet pea is a flower but
it's very viney and and we tookit and we, we chopped it all
down and we made some of it intomulch and I took a big,
gigantic heap of it, like a hugetarp of it, and threw it in a
(50:39):
compost pile and then I didnothing to it because I saw this
YouTube video where in 30 daysit was magically better and mine
turned into this scary lookinglike rodent cavern.
I don't know if there are ratsin it, but I want to find out
and I'm so afraid to move itwith a pitchfork that I think
I'm going to need to havesomeone come out.
(51:01):
I need, like a partner in crime, to come out and probably throw
it into my green bin and juststart again, because it just
looks like it's harboringfugitive rodents.
It really does.
Oh, I got another one for you.
This is a really bad one.
I ripened tomatoes.
So there was somebody eating mytomatoes in my garden and I was
like I'm going to take theseinto my she shed, which is like
(51:22):
my garden shed, and I'm going toripen them in there, and ha, ha
, ha, they won't get themanymore.
Well then a rat found them andsaid oh my gosh, this newly
planted she shed is beautiful,it's comfy, it's got a cushion
seat and they give me free foodhere, and so I'm not often
scared of, but for some reasonmy brain's, like rats, are
terrible.
So I let out like a murderscene scream and wouldn't go
(51:46):
back in until a friend of minewent in and scared it away.
And then I had to do peppermintoil, which actually did get rid
of the just essential oil.
Peppermint got rid of it, therat in my, in my shed, and I
will never again ripen tomatoesin a she shed.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Well, thank you for your vulnerability.
I appreciate your honestfailure stories because I think
this is what we need to sharealso, because when you're on
social media or on YouTube or Imean it's, you know, it's like
all a little magical world outthere.
But I think the takeaway isthat things happen, mistakes
(52:23):
happen.
It's no big deal.
I've burned plenty of things inmy kitchen before and I cook
for a living.
I mean it's not, it happens, Imean it's not, it's not fun but
it's not like yeah, but I meanit's.
I mean I've, I've made thingsthat were, yeah, Like I thought
were like a zero on the scale ofone to 10, you know or like
(52:43):
this just tastes terrible andlike what.
What did I?
You know what did I do, but Ithink that's just how you learn.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
It absolutely is.
But it's funny because I justwould assume that you've never
burned anything.
Isn't that silly?
But I would think, like yourbrain does think that like, oh
well, she's a chef, so of course.
Of course she's never had.
You had to learn somehow, right?
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yes, I daily to me, but I mean, but every once in a
while, like something willhappen.
I'm like, oh wow, like I can'tbelieve that.
I like that burned, Like whydid that happen?
You know?
Or you know something similar?
Something just doesn't tasteright, or and yeah, it just
that's part of how you getbetter, I think, at things.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
And and that self-talk, like be very
conscious of what you are sayingto yourself, because I could
easily have gone into who putslike delicious fruit out in a
shed where rodents can get to itLike they, you know.
Obviously it's not steel dooror anything.
I could have easily beat myselfup about it, but instead I
chose to go like oh yeah, that'sa very dumb mistake, but it
(53:46):
doesn't mean I'm dumb, it justmeans I made a mistake and
everything can be fixed.
There's no such thing as anirreversible mistake in terms of
homesteading, as long as you'rereally you know yeah, yes, you
just made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
You're not a mistake right.
So yes, it's just and it's alla learning process.
I mean, if you saw how I wasgardening 25 years ago versus
how I'm gardening now, you wouldthink I mean my know.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
You are in San Diego, right that area, so like your
seasons probably don't changethat much okay, and so summer is
(54:50):
tricky for us because it can beso hot that it's really not
safe to be out gardening all day.
And I'm not a um, I have a.
I have a pretty busy morningroutine because that's when I
have a lot of my energy, andthen in the evening I'm like ugh
, I don't want to go out.
But it's important to go out and, you know, tend to your garden
and so so what I've starteddoing recently is habit stacking
, watering my garden with guiltypleasure podcasts.
(55:13):
So the podcasts that I don'twant anyone to know I'm
listening to, they're silly,they're a waste of time, but if
I only listen to them while I'mwatering, I have a little more
motivation to go out, because Iused to be a Puritan, and I
still am, a lot of the timeswhere I just want to be with my
plants and not have somethingtalking at me, you know, because
I think we can add too much tous, but for me right now that's
(55:36):
a really good way to get outside.
When it's too hot and it's alittle late and it's hard for me
to get my motivation, oh well,I'll just watch that, I'll just
listen to that podcast and noone will know, except now.
All of your listeners will know.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Right.
Well, you can listen to thispodcast.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
That's right, this podcast would be great.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Yeah, but same.
I do the same.
If I'm feeling low energy orsomething like that, I'll put a
podcast or a book on orsomething just to break it up.
Or I do like going into mygarden with no noise whatsoever
and just you know it's being atpeace.
Yeah, yes.
Well, elizabeth, any othertakeaways about habits that you
can give my audience or you know, some imparting wisdom?
Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yes, I, I would say that the five minute rule is one
of my favorite things, and thenI will give you a little gift
for your, for your audiencemembers that would like it.
The five minute rule is justtry doing a habit for five
minutes and then giving yourselfpermission not to do it after.
And so for me, with the guiltypleasure podcast, like let's say
, that gets me out there.
But what really gets me outthere is saying I'm just going
(56:46):
to set the kitchen timer forfive minutes, I'm going to prune
that monster purple I don'teven know what the purple bush
is in front of my house that'sgrowing over all of my food.
Like I went away for a week andI came back and it's this
monster.
But if I just tell myself I'mjust going to prune it for five
minutes and then I can stop, Ireally truly do stop after five
minutes, and sometimes you wantto go longer.
But giving yourself thatpermission really stops you from
(57:10):
going.
Oh, I just don't have time.
Everybody has five minutes.
And then allow yourself to dothe whatever bad habit that you
typically have.
Like, let's say, you're goingto scroll through social media.
Fine, do the five minutes ofthe easy, of the habit that you
want to create and then rewardyourself with as long as you
want, as you would normally do,of the habit that you consider
not the best.
And so, for habit creation, Idid create a free habit tracker
(57:34):
that is available to youraudience.
You can get it atwwwcreatewellnessprojectcom.
Forward slash gift G, I, f, t.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Okay, great, I will put that also in the show notes
so people can grab that link.
Elizabeth, thank you so muchOnce again.
Every time we talk now, I justfeel inspired.
My next project is to makekefir.
That is my that's and I'm goingto look up.
So do you have your courseonline yet?
Speaker 2 (58:02):
No, I have probably about 10 more hours to do, but I
am going to send you the courseonce I'm done, so that you can
enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Okay, that would be wonderful, and then I will let
you know how that goes as well.
You're my accountabilitypartner now, sure, well, thank
you so much for being here again.
I really appreciate it, and Ihope this inspires everyone to
get growing or do somethinghomestead minded.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Thank you, heather.
This was so much fun.
Thank you for having me, greatThanks.
Hey everybody and welcome back to Real Food
Stories.
We're in the heart of summerright now, which means visits to
the farmer's markets and,hopefully, growing some of your
own vegetables or herbs in yourvery own garden, whether that is
a container on your deck, a potof basil in your kitchen or a
(00:21):
larger outdoor garden.
Now, back in April, I had myguest who's going to be on today
Elizabeth Bruckner.
She was on our show to talkabout homesteading and gardening
and it was totally eye-openingto me.
We ended that episode which isepisode 116, by the way, if you
want to go back and take alisten With the realization that
(00:43):
homesteading is a mindset.
It's not about necessarilyliving off the grid in Alaska
although that is totally finetoo if you want to do that but
homesteading really is aboutmindset and habits.
So if you did catch myconversation with Elizabeth,
you'll remember how a garlicshortage during COVID led
(01:05):
Elizabeth down a completelyunexpected path From
acupuncturist to full-blownfront yard gardener,
fermentation expert and nowauthor of the Homesteader
Mindset.
We talked all about her journey, what it means to live closer
to your food and, yes, she evenconvinced me to try making my
own vinegar.
(01:25):
So today we're picking up rightwhere we left off, but going
even deeper.
Because here's the thingcreating a life that feels more
connected and nourishing isn'tjust about compost or a gaggle
of backyard chickens althoughall of that stuff is great too.
It's about small, consistenthabits, the kind that make you
(01:47):
feel grounded, more alive and,yes, more joyful.
And Elizabeth is the perfectperson to guide us through that
shift.
Whether you're a garden,curious, fascinated with
fermentation, or just trying tofigure out how to get started
with something new, this episodeis for you.
So let's dive into what itreally means to build a
(02:09):
homesteader mindset and how tomake it stick, one tiny habit at
a time.
Hi Elizabeth, how are you Sincewe have talked?
We got on the podcast back inApril of 2025, in case someone
listens to this and somewhere inthe future but we were talking
(02:30):
a couple months ago abouthomesteading, and as we talked I
mean you definitely, ifanyone's listened to that last
episode Elizabeth reminded meand inspired me that I could
actually make my own homemadevinegar.
This is part of the homesteadingphilosophy and it never really
occurred to me to do that,because I make a lot of other
(02:54):
things I bake bread, I have ahuge vegetable garden, I have
chickens, bees, the whole thingbut vinegar was not one that
made my list.
So she challenged me, and herewe are now in July, and I made
my vinegar and it came out great, and I'm using it as a kitchen
counter spray that I dilutedwith some water, and while also
(03:18):
I did that, while I was havingthings sit on my counter, I also
decided to make some sauerkrautand I made some kimchi, which I
have done in the past, but I'mnot going to lie.
There's something about makingmy own food and we can talk more
about.
This is, like you know, likegoing along with this
homesteaders mindset that I havea little trepidation about.
(03:41):
I feel like if it's not comingout of the store, out of like a
factory, then I don't know ifit's like truly safe, and so I
you know, so I have a littlehesitation.
What do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I love that we're talking about it.
So the the image that came intomy mind is I'm sure you've seen
on YouTube people puttingcucumbers behind cats and then
the cat recognizing the cucumberand jumping like crazy.
It's hilarious and not verynice.
I have not seen that, yeah, soit's just this innate knowing
that cats do not like thingsthat look sort of like snakes, I
(04:14):
think, is my guess.
And so they see it and theyjump up in the air every single
time.
Right, cats like.
Every now and then there's onedumb, dumb cat or super brave
cat that's like meh, it's just acucumber.
But this reminds me that wealso, our brains, are programmed
to look for danger, and we'realways looking for danger in the
unknown.
(04:34):
And so, because we were raisedin a generation where you got
all your food from the store, Ididn't even know I did not know
until a few years ago that mygrandma had a dairy cow.
When my brother was growing up,he was raised on raw milk.
I had no idea because we didn'ttalk about it, because we got
milk at the grocery store likeeverybody else.
And so when we look at thosepatterns, it's a beautiful thing
(04:58):
that your body is telling yoube careful, go carefully here,
make sure that you're not doingsomething that's going to harm
you.
With that being said, for me thebest way to get past that fear
of the unknown, because I wasterrified of eating something
that was going to make me die Imean, how many news stories have
we heard of someone you know,and there are some things that
(05:21):
can be kind of tricky.
For example, if you take oliveoil and you infuse it with
garlic, a lot of people areleaving that on their counter,
and then the olive oil getsrancid and sometimes botulism
can grow in that olive oil.
So, yes, it can be dangerous attimes, and so the best way to
(05:42):
surpass that is to give yourbrain more knowledge so that it
can actually identify what issafe and what's unsafe.
The first tool that you have,which is my absolute favorite
tool, because, unless you cut itoff to spite your face, your
nose is quite.
I'm so proud of myself forthrowing that little play on
words.
Your nose is the best tool thatyou could possibly have.
(06:06):
If it smells funky and not likein a sauerkraut funky, but oh
my gosh, that's like you know,that thing needs to get thrown
out into the trash, that is agood indication that you should
not be trying it.
With that being said, when itcomes to lacto-fermentation of
vegetables, it's very rare thatyou'll get something harmful or
deadly on it.
(06:27):
What I usually say to studentsand patients alike is if you see
a mold that is a fancy color,then you do not want to eat it
(06:48):
and you can just mix that intothe ferment.
But if it's brown or a reallyfancy green or really pretty
blue, take a picture of it, postit on Instagram and then throw
it away.
Now some people would even say,oh well, you can just scrape it
off.
But I like to be safe ratherthan sorry.
So the more that I recognizewhat's going on in this
fermentation.
If there's enough salt in thatfermentation, especially for
lactobacillus, what happens isthe salt inhibits all the other
(07:12):
bacteria, while thelactobacillus goes wild and
crazy, and that's the good stuff.
That's going to make you superhappy and that you buy expensive
probiotics full of it.
Now I think maybe we didn't talkabout this but I need to say it
because I'm so excited aboutyour sauerkraut.
One teaspoon of sauerkraut hasmore probiotics, in variety and
(07:32):
amount of probiotic cells, thanan entire bottle of that $68
probiotic, you know,refrigerated fancy bottle that
you get at the supermarket.
So you just made an incrediblething, an incredible vitamin for
your family.
But does that?
Does that make sense?
Like this idea that knowledgereally is power and the more we
know, the less scared scared wecan be, just like with your
(07:54):
vinegar.
You had the little acid stripsthat will tell you.
You know, there are, you know,and that costs like four bucks
on Amazon to get those strips.
Sometimes I use them when it'swith cleaning vinegar, sometimes
I don't.
I use it more out of curiositynow because I want to see what's
the level getting to.
And I do want to talk aboutvinegar a little bit because I
(08:15):
here's my vinegar bottle that Ihave to fill up.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, that's great yeah .
I should have brought mine withme to show you, but I don't
have it with me, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, no worries, I'll model mine, but mine is
empty.
It needs to be filled up.
But I want to talk about what Ido in terms of making it easier
, like reducing the friction, interms of a habit.
So I'm going to make anotherdose of my bathroom cleaner.
I have one for my bathroom andone for my kitchen and I use
these for the counters.
If I need to scrub something,I'll throw a little baking soda
(08:45):
on it and that's like myscrubber.
That's kind of like what softscrub used to be, but there's no
chemicals involved.
And what I do here is I labelit bathroom cleaner.
Sadly, it's in a plastic bottleright now, which I don't
recommend.
I think get a glass bottle, butthen on the label you can write
what is in it.
So for me, I don't want to haveto remember my formula, but I
want it to smell the same eachtime.
(09:06):
So I'll write vinegar pluswater, h2o, that's half and half
, half vinegar, half water, andthen I write down the essential
oils that I put in it For mybathroom I do five drops of
rosemary, five drops of tea treeand then 15 drops of lemongrass
to give it that lemonyrass,that lemony smell, and so now I
don't have to think about it.
It makes it easier, and so Ithought I'd bring this over to
(09:28):
tell you about it, because a lotof people think like, oh, you
got to make the vinegar and it'sgoing to take all day, and no,
it takes.
What did it take for you interms of mixing it every day?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Oh, it took me a few seconds to just to make sure
that it was.
Things were submerged, andyou're really not.
I mean, it's just sitting onyour counter, yep Right,
fermenting, and like I mean,same with the sauerkraut and the
kimchi.
I mean it's really you justneed to, you know, put your eyes
(10:03):
on it for a minute or two everysingle day, but it really is
doing the work for you, so it'snot, there's nothing really
heavy duty that you have to dowith it and it's, and it's.
I mean, you know my sauerkraut,I mean it all tastes so much
better than when you buy it fromthe store also.
But I want to go back.
I agree with you with, withjust getting educated, that we
(10:24):
really do need to have someeducation, right, and I think
just at the basic level.
If something doesn't smell right, don't even, because now I'm
remembering that when I startedmaking my sauerkraut, I made two
jars of it.
One of them was going down thatpath.
I'm not sure why, though,because both of them were
(10:44):
sitting side by side on thecounter and I could smell it and
like, and I, I, I smelled itafter a couple of days.
I'm like, this does not smellright at all, and I'm not taking
my chances.
The other one came out fine,and that one's been great, but
the other one, you know but thefirst one was not didn't smell.
Right Now I I could take aguess as to what was happening,
(11:06):
but I'm not still quite sure.
Yeah, so anyway.
Fermenting is is on my list ofhomesteading things, sort of
like at the more, so at thebottom.
I want to.
I want to, though, make thismore of a habit for myself, and
the counter spray is great.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I love it too.
You can actually make vinegarwith wine as well, and I've done
that successfully once.
And then I tried putting amother in it, which a mother is
kind of like a.
It's a mass of bacteria thatforms in another type of
fermentation.
So sometimes you'll see yourlike your brine.
I have a lemon brine where Iferment lemons and then use them
(11:48):
for cooking and stuff, andthere was like this kind of blob
at the bottom.
That's the mother, and so youcan take that and you can put it
in other things.
I put it in my wine and it didnot like it, and so I also did
the sniff test and I'm like thisis not good.
This one has to go, and I thinkyou have to.
For me there's a you know, II've really I'm a recovering
(12:11):
perfectionist and so I have tobe really okay with you cannot
learn unless you make mistakes,like it's not that that
sauerkraut was ruined and youare a failure and you should
just never do it again.
It was like no, you trustedyour instincts.
You trusted that your body wastelling you what you needed, and
now you can very gently behappy that 50% of the sauerkraut
(12:31):
is doing well and every.
I mean, I had slimy onions onceand I don't need to kind of go
into what did I do wrong and Ijust, for some reason, the
onions did not agree with myferment that time.
And then I love this idea ofmaking this, bringing this up to
a higher up on your prioritylist, because it's such an easy
thing to do.
And that's why I'm so excited totalk about habits with you,
(12:55):
because people don't realizethat once you get some habits,
it becomes joyful, it becomes apleasure, it becomes not
difficult.
And I will say the first secret, if we can start just with this
, is something you said fromyour example.
You told me that we're going tohave another podcast, and so
you had accountability.
We were going to be talkingabout your vinegar, and so it
(13:15):
definitely.
When we have accountability, Iam known for calling a friend up
and being like hey, how are youdoing on your exercise?
Do you want to text me everyday?
And we'll just, you know, getkind of connected on it or
whatever habit that I'm tryingto form.
Accountability goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Absolutely.
Oh yeah, there's no way I wasgoing to show up on this podcast
without first having made thatvinegar.
I'm like I have to make thevinegar because Elizabeth gave
me the recipe and I was curiousto make it too and it came out
great, but I definitely wantedto have it made.
I didn't want to come on hereand say sorry I didn't make it,
(13:52):
I got lazy, or anything likethat.
No-transcript super important,I think.
I think it definitely helpswith habit formation.
But I just want to just quicklygo back, just in case some of my
listeners have not listened tothe first episode, because we
(14:12):
talked about this concept in thefirst episode of homesteading.
So I just want to remind people, or if they haven't listened,
what homesteading is for you,because I think when we started
our conversation the last time,I had it in my head that you
were living in like some remotearea of California and you were
(14:32):
living off the land and that's,you know, that's what I thought
of homesteading is that you'rereally kind of off grid off land
, you know, and you're kind ofoff grid off land, you know, and
you're surviving this way, andyou showed me that that's not
necessarily how it has to be andthat homesteading is more of a
mindset, that there's a mindsetaround it.
(14:53):
So can you just tell mylisteners just quickly you know,
just to catch them up, whereyou live and what your
homesteading is like.
And then I want to talk aboutthe habits and how to make this
more of a habit.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Absolutely so.
I do have some eyeliner on.
I did not go outside, grab somebark, burn it and then put it
on my eyelids.
I am a Southern California girland I live where I can see
telephone poles outside of mywindow.
I live in the suburbs.
There's lots of cement andthere are lots of conveniences
(15:33):
here.
So homesteading doesn't have tobe living off grid, which I you
know.
Kudos to those that do it.
And let me tell you, if someonegave me a hundred acres of land
, if one of your listeners wouldlike to gift me with a hundred
acres, I will take it and I willmake them vinegar until their
dying day, happily.
But for now I live in thisbeautiful suburb with lots of
(15:54):
lovely neighbors and I didn'teven know what homesteading was.
What I've come to see that it isis modern homesteading, which
is different than that livingoff grid with fighting off bears
, is a practice of cultivatingresilience through a more
intentional way of living.
If I had to say it in onesentence, that would be it.
It is a practice of cultivatingresilience through a more
(16:16):
intentional way of living, andthis includes reducing toxic
load in our homes, like makingyourself vinegar to clean your
house instead of even, insteadof buying the thing that says
organic but has 500 ingredientsthat you spray on your on your
counters.
It involves building our gutmicrobiome with nutrient dense
foods like sauerkraut.
It involves growing ediblelandscaping, which you're
already doing, I'm already doing.
(16:37):
And for those of you that think, oh, I can't do it because I
live in an apartment, my book,the Homesteader Mindset, talks
about that as well.
Like you're able to do itanywhere.
There are many different spokesto homesteading and we're just
connecting deeply with our owninnate resourcefulness.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, so that is very different than just the general
concept of homesteading, right,that someone can do this
anywhere.
Yes, it doesn't have to be on100 acres of land, it can be in
an apartment, it can do.
It can be what you can do foryourself that feels good for you
, right?
So, okay, so let's now go intothe creating a habit around this
(17:21):
, because it definitely takessome commitment and some habit
formation and to get to getgoing and to realize that this
is a benefit for you, right?
So let's, so, let's talk abouthow you created your habits.
I.
I mean, was there a moment whenyou realized that you were no
(17:45):
longer like trying to livedifferently, that this just
became like part of your dailyliving?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You know, I think it goes back to my medical training
and then my language learninghobby, because that is when I
learned that the brain createshabits and loves patterns and
loves novelty and repetition,which sounds like opposites, but
that's not true.
And so, as I was learninglanguages, I'd always been a
neuroscience nerd.
(18:14):
I always in the clinic, in mygraduate school work, at the
clinic in school and then in myown clinic, I always worked on
emotional issues andneurological issues because they
fascinated me.
And so then, when I startedlearning languages and I had to
learn how to create habits in it, you know I was working, I had
a, I had a clinic that I wasrunning.
I didn't have time to justspend hours upon hours upon
(18:36):
hours of learning languages, andso I started reading up on
habit creation and habit for any.
Actually, a friend of mine, apolyglot that speaks, I think,
like five or six languages, hesent me a book after I gave a
presentation as a gift.
It was called the power ofhabit by Charles Dewey, and this
book blew my mind becausenumber one the nerdy science
(18:57):
geek in me, could learn allabout the different parts of the
brain and where routine andhabit connect, and it also got
me on this idea of oh, I coulddo this for patients, because
patient compliance was somethingthat I was constantly
questioning.
Why aren't my patients doingthis?
They come in, they feel better,they want to feel better.
I give them some ideas, they gohome, they don't do them.
(19:18):
They come back in feeling badand then they feel better after
the treatment.
But they could feel so muchbetter.
And I knew it wasn't a case oflazy or unintelligent.
These were smart, creative,successful people that were
coming to my clinic.
Why weren't they able to do it?
They have the same 24 hours aseveryone else.
So do I, and that's when Istarted realizing that a lot of
(19:40):
them are stuck in the paralysisof I want to do it, but I have
these three myths it's going totake up too much time, I don't
have time, it's too complicatedand I don't have enough money.
And so I started working,firstly with the I don't have
time, Like is that true?
Is it true that we don't havetime?
I could easily convince youthat I do not have time, but
(20:00):
when we look at languagelearning, they talked a lot
about dead time.
I really didn't like that word.
It sounded kind of morbid.
I don't want to be hanging outwith zombie time, so I re-coined
it found time.
And what found time is isanytime you're pulling away from
what's happening in the presentmoment and reaching for a
distraction.
So how many times a day do youpick up your phone and you just
(20:22):
check text for text messages,even though you're not expecting
a text message?
Or you find yourself scrollingand then 15 minutes later, or,
gosh, two hours later, you'relike what have I done?
That is found time and I don'twant to take away the reward
that you get for checking yourtext messages and seeing a cute
picture of your grandkid.
I absolutely don't want to takethat away from you.
(20:43):
And we can add something to thatfound time and create habits.
So when that light bulb wentoff for me which was habit
chaining, habit stacking, thefive minute rule when that light
bulb went off, I realized thatI could learn languages with
five minute increments a day.
And so when I bumped intohomesteading, which you and I
(21:05):
talked about how I accidentallybecame a homesteader in the
April episode, it was um, it wasa light bulb moment for me.
I already knew I know how tocreate systems, so I'm just
going to translate, pun intended.
I'm going to translate mylanguage learning habits into
homesteading habits, and I juststarted one step at a time.
So I'll give you an example ofhabit stacking and habit
(21:26):
chaining, because that's whatI'm talking about.
People are like what does thatmean?
Habit stacking is when you takea habit that you already have
and you put another habit on topof it.
So one example is during adaily commute to work, you might
want to search for podcasts onhealing herbs in the kitchen,
and then during your dailycommute, you just click one
before you get in the car Well,before you turn it on, of course
(21:48):
, you don't want to get anytickets and you listen to that
podcast on healing herbs in thekitchen.
For me, I did this with castoroil.
I wanted to know everythingabout castor oil.
Everyone talked about itsbeauty properties and what it
does for the skin.
I'm like, yeah, but I've heard,there's more.
(22:09):
I've heard there's more.
And so I just listened to everypodcast that existed on castor
oil for a couple of weeks andthen I got fairly good at
understanding what castor oildoes scientifically.
So that's habit stacking.
You take something that's kindof a mindless task and then you
add another one on top.
Habit chaining is when you takea habit that already exists and
you do a habit before it, a newhabit before it or a new habit
after it.
So for me, after washing mydishes today, I wanted to think
(22:31):
of a very current habit that Ichained.
I usually do one smallhomesteading task, one like five
minutes or less, and in thiscase I was like well, my kefir
is good, so I don't need tocheck on my kefir.
I really I would.
It's super hot here.
We need to stay hydrated.
I'm going to make an herbalinfusion.
So the garden herbal infusionis something that I've coined,
(22:54):
but it's just herbs.
You throw them in a in a bigpitcher of water, which I see
it's show and tell.
Today, heather, I brought thesespecifically for you, so I have
a giant mason jar it's about ahalf gallon mason jar with a
plastic lid that has a spout anda handle.
I got that at masontopscom.
I love that company and so nowI have this canister for water.
(23:18):
I went out to my gardenbarefoot and I took my scissors
and clipped off lemon verbena, alittle bit of rue, which is the
herb of grace.
I love learning about thefolklore around herbs, so if I
seem a little more dignified orgraceful today, that's why If I
don't, then you have no idea howungraceful I am normally
because herb of grace helped me.
(23:40):
I did a few blooms of marigoldsand then just a small snipping
of rosemary.
I put it in some water.
I was standing barefoot in mygrass while I was doing this,
and this was just the one.
It was less than five minutes,just like your stirring of the
vinegar, and this did somethingcalled function stacking in
permaculture.
So function stacking inpermaculture is you have a
(24:02):
product or some behavior or arelationship in your life and
you stack functions on it.
In the case of this, I hadsunlight therapy.
When your eyes see naturalsunlight, they create enzymes
for your body.
I had barefoot grounding so Iwas getting a different
electrical charge from theground, the garden reward,
(24:24):
because a lot of times gardenerswill work really hard in their
garden and then they won't goout and enjoy it, and instead I
gave myself a little dopamine oflike look what I created while
not doing much work.
And then of course, the herbalinfusion for easy hydration.
So I hope that gave you kind ofan idea of how I started
creating habits.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yes, no, that all really makes sense.
And I think what I was thinkingwhile you were saying that is
that I think, for me at least,all goes back to my why.
You know, like, why I even wantto do this in the first place,
and rather than thinking like,well, someone on social media
(25:03):
said it was cool, or you knowlike, it's kind of like a thing
to do, but for me at least,right, making herbal infusions
with water is.
Or growing my garden, making myown sauerkraut these are so
important, like innatelyimportant, to me, that it brings
(25:26):
me a lot of motivation, becauseI know that growing my own
tomatoes, for example, andpicking them and eating them
right away is not only justsuper nutritious, they taste
better.
Super nutritious, they tastebetter, and it gives me a lot of
really good feelings of joy todo that.
(25:47):
And so that for me, also startswith, like the why am I even
doing this all in the firstplace?
Yeah, how do you feel aboutthat?
Just starting with your why, toget people who are maybe just
(26:08):
still going to argue that I amtoo busy, I am burnt out, where
am I finding the time to do this?
And I get it.
I mean, believe me, I could siton my email on social media,
which I, you know, such a love,mostly hate relationship with,
and I mean you could kill 30, 60minutes at a time, which could
go, then, towards doingsomething more useful and joyful
(26:29):
.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yes, I think that this is such an important point
that you bring up because Iremember in my forties I read
okay.
So the way that my brain worksis I have a problem, I need to
find a solution, I'm going toresearch that solution and so I
typically will get on an idea.
I had someone that was in myfamily that was sick with cancer
(26:51):
and we were putting her throughhospice care and we were
caregiving, and so I read everybook on death and dying because
I wanted to make sure that I didit right.
But I was also super curious.
My why was how can I give herthe best dignity of life into
her new transition as possible?
I did the same with timemanagement.
I thought if I could only getthe right bullet journal and the
(27:13):
right highlighters and theright stickers, then my life
would be just amazing and Iwould get everything done that I
wanted to get done.
And what I realized is that Ihad an unsolvable riddle because
my time management had nothingto do with lack of self-care as
a priority, so my prioritieswere screwed up.
It doesn't matter what I'mgoing to do with time management
(27:36):
.
If you don't know what you want, you will not get it, I promise
you.
And so I, in my forties, didn'tknow what I wanted.
I knew that I wanted to do allthe things that you're supposed
to do to be a good healthcarepractitioner.
I wanted to make sure that Iwas top-notch in my clinic and
that I was knowledgeable aboutwhat I was treating.
I wanted to make sure that Iwas healthy, because I got to be
a good role model, et cetera,et cetera, and that is what
(27:57):
landed me with a chronic illness.
I didn't have self-care as apriority, and I also thought
that self-care meant exercisingwell, eating well and sleeping
well.
I thought it was all the stuffthat the fitness magazines tell
you, and what I realized is thatI had missed out on the delight
(28:18):
and pleasure of living.
That sounds so insane that Iforgot to be happy.
But then, when I got sick andall of my everything was taken
away my profession, my abilityto stand on my own or think on
my own or finish full sentencesit got really clear that
(28:39):
self-care was more than justsleeping okay, eating okay,
resting okay.
And so my why for homesteading?
Because it happened during thepandemic and I was panicked.
I'm like, well, I can't findfood.
This is not good.
This is really concerning to me.
My why was resilience?
Being able to do something, noteverything.
(29:00):
I don't have enough food tolast five winters, but I do have
the resilience to know whatbroccoli looks like when it's
coming out of the ground, knowwhat a seed needs and how.
If it's a bigger seed, it needsto go a little farther down in
the ground.
If it's a lighter seed, it goeson the top.
It also gives me this feeling offreedom.
It also gives me this feelingof freedom and I'm not saying
(29:21):
freedom in the like I'm freefrom all responsibility, I can
just be on my own.
It's not the island unto myselfwhich I thought in my 20s was
what I had discovered Like, oh,I'll just be isolated and do
everything myself and there'llnever be a problem.
It turns out, we're socialbeings.
You need to be with others.
(29:42):
So this freedom is more of thisability to.
I have things that I can sharewith others and I have needs
that can be fulfilled from myfellows, and so it connects me,
the freedom to connect with mycommunity in a more meaningful
way.
And then the last why that Ihave, which I think is more
important than any why, quitehonestly and it's going to sound
maybe hedonistic, but it's not.
(30:03):
That is contentment.
There's nothing more fulfillingto me than going out barefoot
and snipping some of my gardenand noticing the abundance,
noticing the health that I'mgoing to give my family,
noticing that there's a goodchance that I'm going to stay
really healthy and not haveanother crazy chronic illness
(30:25):
that my husband's going to haveto take care of me.
He's getting a resilient,strong, healthy wife.
My family members are happy.
When I'm content, the worldbecomes a more content place
because I'm able to givegoodness, I'm able to share
goodness, because I have it.
I'm filling up on it.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
That all really makes sense and it just just makes me
think of like I mean, these areall your values, right?
So it would almost be importantto do a like a values exercise
right To, to just see what'sreally important to you in life.
And I love the like, thecontentment part.
Part because same for me when Iwalk into my garden and now my
(31:05):
garden's well-growing right nowand I don't have to do a lot
with it.
But I love nothing more thanwalking in there in the
afternoon and just kind ofstrolling around and taking a
little, you know, just taking alittle mental check at
everything, seeing what'sgrowing, seeing what do I need
to snip or pull, and thatcreates so much contentment for
(31:26):
me and that's one of my valuesas well is, if maybe not the
most important value, is justthat feeling of being content,
and I get it from my garden andin this, I guess, homesteading
mindset.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
The homesteading mindset I saw this morning when
I was watering my mullein.
There it's in full bloom rightnow and there were about nine
bees on it and I didn't thinkabout this until you were
talking, but I was just.
You know, honeybees are kind ofmellow and so they don't mind
me getting up close and taking apeek at them, but they had so
much pollen connected to theirlittle legs, like one had way
(32:06):
more pollen than the rest and itwas just.
You know, this is not something.
Yeah, you can go look at thaton YouTube.
But to be in the sunlightwatching nature and seeing how
the fact that I planted thatmullein two years ago is feeding
these bees and they're creatingincredible honey, that's just
this amazing circle of life thatI get to be a part of.
What better meditation can youhave?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yes, and the circle of life?
I mean right, it all comes backfull circle.
You grow things, you cancompost, which I do a lot.
That compost then turns intodirt that goes into my garden
and it all is a big circle oflife, which is another thing.
I find fascinating that I canhave some control over that.
(32:50):
I can do my part in that andthen also just grow things that
are so nutritious and good forme.
So it's all.
Yeah, it all goes back to, Ithink, to this why and to what
we really value, and I thinksome people don't even realize
that sometimes they're not evenclear on how things grow in a
(33:12):
garden.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I wasn't yeah, I absolutely was not.
I didn't know I was.
You know, I was 40 years oldand didn't know what broccoli
looked like.
And that sounds so sad, but Ilike to say it, because now when
people come to my house andthey see that there are 50
things growing and I reallyhaven't done anything for, you
know, two weeks on my garden andit's just doing quite well,
(33:34):
they think that I've alwaysknown how to do that and I
learned it very quickly throughfive minute exercises, five
minute habit stacks.
So can I ask you a questionabout that?
I want to go back to thevinegar because I really like
talking about a habit that'sreally fresh in your, in your
mind.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
You've decided, you've got your accountability.
You know that we're going to bechatting.
You know that you've got to doit.
Did you habit chain or habitstack to get that, to get that
vinegar going?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Well, let's see.
I mean, I thought, while I'mmaking the vinegar, I'm going to
make the sauerkraut too, andI'm also going to make the
kimchi, because while things aresitting on my counter, why not
do all of it?
Yeah, so you have it stacked,yeah, so I have it stacked that
way, and so then, every singleday, I was checking all of them.
(34:26):
How did you remember?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
to check them.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Well, they were right in my I'm in my kitchen a lot
cooking, so I mean they're likekind of they were sort of right
in front of me, in front of myface, so I could see them pretty
well.
And I even I even went up to wehave a place in Maine I drove
up there.
I took them all with me becauseI didn't want to leave them
alone for two.
(34:51):
You know, we were only up therefor about a week, but I didn't
want to leave them alone, and sothey came with me, and then we
came back, and so I think justhaving them right in front of me
in the kitchen was the best wayto remind me.
If I didn't have them in mykitchen, I probably would have
put a reminder on my phone in mycalendar just to ding me.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah.
So what you did was you made iteasy and accessible, which is
one of the ways to create habits, and you made it attractive
because it looks pretty in a ina.
You know it looks.
It's ferments are really prettyand they're fun to see them.
You know growing and changingcolors and all that stuff.
And so these are two ways thatthe book atomic habits talks
(35:37):
about this.
In my book as well, I talk aboutit because I translate it into
homesteading.
But making it attractive,making it easy, making it easy
for you to remember.
So for me, a lot of times myhomesteading tasks will connect
to like before I brush my teeth,it's bedtime, I'm about to
brush my teeth, I'm letting thedog out, I have to walk through
the kitchen to let the dog outand in that moment I'm going.
(35:57):
Oh, I probably should check onmy kefir and see how it's doing
and if it needs to go into ahotel or if it needs to have a
new ferment.
That moment it takes about fiveminutes, I quickly tend to my
kefir and then off I go to bed.
But it's connected, it's easy,it's accessible and it's
attractive because my kefir isreally cute on my counter.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Right, yeah, no, it was nice.
I had about four jars going onmy counter and that was kind of
you know, curious, and peoplewere wondering what was going on
in there, and so it was.
Yeah, that definitely kept myattention with it.
Now it's interesting, though,now that we're talking about
this so I made everything and Ihaven't done it again.
(36:38):
I haven't started like a nextround, and we're talking.
I'm like why haven't I starteda next round of the vinegar and
I will.
So now that we're talking aboutit again.
I'll have to have you back onin a couple months.
Be accountable.
Yeah, so I could see how youcould get into a habit and how
(37:01):
it might change, get me out of ahabit.
But I think I but I also, nowthat we're talking about this
out loud I mean, I have my spray, I have my sauerkraut.
Still I don't I'm not finishedwith it and I'm not finished
with the kimchi.
So it's I'm not feeling maybethat motivated to start it again
because I still I'm.
I have it.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Yeah, you've got plenty.
On supply, I don't do acontinuous thing of vinegar.
I do a continuous thing ofkefir, because it really helps
my gut.
It's just fantastic for my bodyand we go through a lot of it.
We make ice cream with kefir,we make sour cream and like a
creamy yogurt, and then also atzatziki like a Greek chip dip,
(37:45):
although I use cucumbers for thechip.
But I'm not constantly doingall of them.
There's kind of ebbs and flows.
I would say that one thing thatreally helps and it's kind of
like accountability, but it'salso just a motivation is
allowing yourself to talk aboutthese passions.
So when people come over to myhouse, they will inevitably get
(38:07):
fed some sort of fermentedproduct from my house.
Or we will go out and I'll putmy hands in the compost and let
them smell it, because it'squite remarkable what rotten
food can smell like once it'sbecome compost.
Or we'll walk around the gardenand I'll just show them.
We'll just taste some of thefood.
And so, because I have such apassion for it, I'm continually
(38:31):
renewing that passion byteaching, and I think that's
what you do with podcasting too.
Every time you're sitting downwith someone, you're getting new
ideas and right now you're like, oh, it might be a good idea to
try some more vinegar.
You know, whatever I'm going tomake the same here.
And it's also kind of remarkablewhen somebody has an issue and
then because kefir believe it ornot, homemade kefir can be used
(38:53):
as a lubricant for women.
So I have some some friendsthat are having difficulty post
post menopause and they had noidea that this can actually help
balance your hormones.
It's, you know, it's a oneingredient and it's also going
to help your gut microbiome andalso the microbiome on your skin
and in your groin.
And so it's amazing that whenyou start learning more right,
(39:16):
knowledge is power then you go,oh, this could help this person
and this could help that person.
And the more you teach, themore you get inspired to
continue to learn more yourselfand also to continue to grow and
to have that fermentationstation is what I call it.
You had a little fermentationstation.
Now did you use a bowl to keepit from spilling over?
For the kimchi?
(39:36):
Nobody.
I think kimchi and sauerkrautdon't really spill over much.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, I didn't have a bowl.
They didn't.
They don't usually spill over,so nothing no, nothing was was
spilling over, so I didn't feelthe need to do anything like
that.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, so for those that are listening, typically
when you're doing sauerkraut,kimchi, a lot of the cabbages
don't get super fizzy.
But with other things, likepickled carrots, you take some
carrot sticks, put them in abrine.
A brine is just salt water,which is two cups water to one
tablespoon of salt.
That's the one that I use foreverything.
(40:13):
It's a bit salty, but then youdon't have a problem.
You can look online and findout specific ones, but I'm not
going to do that.
And then if you have that andyou put your carrots in it and
then you close it tightly with acanning jar, you just fingertip
tight Every day you have toburp it.
You have to open it up and burpit.
Well, a lot of times withthings other than sauerkraut,
(40:34):
like the carrots or sometimesthe onions if you do pickled
onions, which tastes great onhoagies back East here they're
called, I think, submarinesandwiches subs you know they'll
overflow, and sometimes evenyou do it morning and night.
You do this burp, it'll justfizzle out.
And so a lot of times we'llhave like a very big.
It's like not a fruit bowl, butit's like a fruit plate and
(40:55):
it's got a lip on it.
So it's like a very small bowland that just keeps it from
spilling all over the place.
For those of you that want to be, want to not have a mess.
Now, for those of you that wantto trick your husband into some
fun prank, you can wait a dayand then have him open up the
ferment, which I did not do onpurpose.
But my husband, I was away, Idid not take my cat, my
(41:17):
sauerkraut with me.
I'm like honey.
Can you please, can you pleaseburp these?
And he wrote oh my gosh, theferments fermented me and he
just had like a.
He didn't know what to do.
So if you're, if you're openingit and they're starting to fizz
, open it quickly, because ifyou don't it becomes this
fountain and it will be veryfunny.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
It'll make for some funny YouTube videos.
That's very funny, yeah.
So I think the takeaway is Imean, things happen like that,
right, mistakes happen and it'sokay.
It doesn't mean that you failedor it didn't work or you can't
do this, you don't know how todo it.
This is reminding me of when Iwas up in Maine.
I decided to I have a sourdoughstarter.
I bake bread a decent amountand I thought I'm going to make
(42:02):
my own sourdough starter to haveup there so I don't keep
bringing my one, my very oldstarter that I have had for a
long time, back and forth.
And so I made a new sourdoughstarter up there and it takes a
couple of days.
Same.
You have to leave it on thecounter, you have to feed it
every single day, dump it outand then one day I think on like
(42:23):
the sixth day, it completelyexploded.
I think on like the sixth dayit completely exploded.
I was like this is not justlike.
I mean, it is like.
I mean I woke up the nextmorning it was just all over the
counter and which is good thing.
I mean that means it's likealive and well and it's and it's
not dying, but it was, you know, just one of those.
I wasn't expecting, yeah things, that that happened.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
So it's a Hulk.
You got the Hulk of sourdoughthat day.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yes, it was pretty funny.
So we're talking about a lot ofthings that might sound
complicated to some people, likekefir.
Meanwhile, that's one thing Ihave never made and that's next
on my list is that we're talkingabout kefir.
I want to make that made andI'm that's next on my list is
that we're talking about kefir.
I want to make that, and thiscan feel overwhelming to some.
(43:13):
You know, like I'm talkingabout sourdough, starter,
sauerkraut and and, but let'ssay, someone who's listening is
curious homestead or curious,you know, but they're just
feeling a little overwhelmed.
What, what's?
What is one like ridiculouslysimple thing that you feel like
they could start with, or even ahabit, you know, or you know
(43:36):
just either one like a, anactivity, like a growing
something, or or a habit thatthey can start with.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I'll give you two, because these can be done in the
city, in a rural area, in thesuburbs.
The first is when you're at thegrocery store, buy a basil
plant.
They almost always have somesort of basil plant there.
Just buy a little basil plant,put it on your windowsill, water
it every now and then and snipoff one or two leaves and throw
(44:08):
it in your water every day, orwhen you walk by, just touch it
with your hands gently and get alittle smell of basil, so that
you have something living inyour home.
You mentioned the last timethat we talked like well, you
have plants behind you now.
I never did before because Ikilled all of them, but I slowly
learned how to commune withplants.
(44:28):
So that is your first.
Just go out and get a littlebasil plant or a little rosemary
plant and just put it in yourwindowsill.
It probably will not.
Well, basil will not liveforever, unless it's blue Thai
basil, which is a perennial, butyou're going to need another
one.
But for the few weeks or monththat you have it, you'll start
getting used to knowing like oh,if I don't water this plant, it
(44:49):
gets a little wilty, it needs alittle more water If it's
starting to get yellow or it'sstarting to look a little like
it's getting mushy, then it hastoo much water and you're just
getting to know what it's liketo tend to another living being.
So that's the first one.
The second one is let's say youwere like me and you're 40
(45:10):
years old.
This was when I was 40 yearsold.
You're well into your career.
You're super, super busy, youbuy all the organic good food,
but you've never cooked yourself.
It's just not what you do.
I recommend learning how to bakea chicken.
It's so simple when I firststarted learning how to cook,
which is pretty much how I cooknow.
And it's so funny becausepeople always ask me for recipes
and I'm like but I'm not a cook.
But I am right, cause now Iknow how to cook.
All of my recipes are typicallythree, three steps or less.
(45:34):
So I'm making an online courseon kefir because I love kefir so
much and I want people tounderstand the biological,
medicinal properties of kefir aswell as how to do it.
It takes five minutes to do it.
So everything, every recipethat I have in there is three
steps or less.
And it's not.
It wasn't on accident.
It was when I was firstlearning how to cook, I would go
to online and look up recipesand if it had more than three
(45:55):
steps I'm like there's no wayI'm going to do this and out it
went.
So for baking a chicken, thethree steps are buy a good
chicken from a reputable companyLike.
There's a place called PrimalPastures which is about an hour
from my house.
I visited the farm.
Believe it or not.
Good farmers will let you seehow they're taking care of their
animals, so I buy my chickensfrom them.
(46:17):
When I wash it, I just wash itin water and I pat it dry, I put
some chicken fat on it, I throwsome salt and maybe another
seasoning like pepper orchipotle.
If I want to go wild and crazy,I stick it in the oven, I think
at 375, for 90 minutes 60 to 90minutes and now I have five
meals that are ready andaccessible.
(46:39):
So those are the two quickiesFor me that originally sounded
insane Like, oh my gosh, I gotto buy a chicken, I got to find
out where it is.
Just buy a chicken to start,and then you can eventually work
on getting a better chicken andthen just work on covering it
in some sort of fat and puttingit in the oven.
And if you forget to do saltbecause, oh my gosh, this is
your first time and you onlylistened to this podcast once
(47:01):
that is okay, you can salt itafterwards.
But learning to get connectedto how to make fast food, I
think, is one of the most modernhomesteading things you can do.
These are fast food.
Yesterday my husband came homefrom work.
I was busy doing something.
Typically, I like to havedinner for us, but instead he
took some pasta that I hadcooked and put a little olive
oil on and kept it in the fridgeas a leftover.
(47:23):
He chopped up a garlic and atomato, put it in a frying pan
and then use the chicken that Ibaked yesterday, and that was.
It took all of five minutes tomake food that was way more
nutritious than if he had stoodin line at a fast food
restaurant, and let me tell youI used to do that in my thirties
.
I would go to like thehealthiest fast food place
because I didn't know how tocook.
(47:43):
And so those are.
I would say two things.
I think probably buying thebasil plant sounds a little less
complicated, huh that?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
might be the first one to try.
Yeah, I think that's a greatidea, though.
I mean just getting a plantlearning how to grow something,
even if it's one basil plant onyour counter.
I think it is such a simple,easy idea and you can feel
successful at it.
Yeah, right, and then maybe youcan get more basil and you know
(48:11):
you can finally get enough thatyou're making some pesto or
like I just did yesterday.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
And that's the secret .
Right, you had said it earlier.
The secret is you start withone thing I'm going to make
vinegar and then you're like,well, well, I'm here, I might as
well make sauerkraut.
I've done it, but you know,that's that is.
It's this rabbit hole that yougo down, this rabbit hole of
contentment and joy that you godown and you're like, oh,
sourdough, doesn't sound likesomething that's interesting to
me.
But she did talk about havingripe, ripened tomatoes.
(48:40):
That sounds kind, yeah, and Ithink, just also having feeling
the confidence to do it.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I think that that I know for me, for a lot of my
clients, that fear of cookingthat and which I think really
translates into a fear ofdisappointing people or not
being good enough, or lettingpeople down or and it's, we got
to let that go right.
(49:12):
We have to.
We make mistakes, we get backup and we try again.
So I wanted to ask you aquestion, just coming going
along with that are there anyhabits or any any things that
you started that you feel liketoes totally flopped, like that.
You're like I'm never doingthat again and what did you
(49:33):
learn from that?
Like what, what would be like atakeaway?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
okay, yeah, there's lots of them that I flopped and
I love that.
I do want to piggyback on whatyou said.
Your self-worth is notconnected to the outcome, like
your self-worth is innate.
It is.
You are given.
You're worthy, that's it.
And when you start looking atthese experiments is what I call
them with the eye of ascientist, it becomes less
(49:57):
personal.
So for my husband and I, when Isit down and I try a new meal
which is three steps or less,I'll go what do you rate that on
a scale of one to 10?
And he'll be like oh, I thinkthat's a six and I'm like really
, I think it's like a four andit's not.
It's not a, it doesn't denotewhat my self-worth is.
It's.
Am I going to do this recipeagain or am I going to try again
and tweak it a little?
So, with that being said, I gota big fat zero on one of my
(50:19):
composting adventures.
My friend came over to staywith me for a few days and I'm
like you know, it'd be great,let's go and take.
We had this patch of sweet peasthat sweet pea is a flower but
it's very viney and and we tookit and we, we chopped it all
down and we made some of it intomulch and I took a big,
gigantic heap of it, like a hugetarp of it, and threw it in a
(50:39):
compost pile and then I didnothing to it because I saw this
YouTube video where in 30 daysit was magically better and mine
turned into this scary lookinglike rodent cavern.
I don't know if there are ratsin it, but I want to find out
and I'm so afraid to move itwith a pitchfork that I think
I'm going to need to havesomeone come out.
(51:01):
I need, like a partner in crime, to come out and probably throw
it into my green bin and juststart again, because it just
looks like it's harboringfugitive rodents.
It really does.
Oh, I got another one for you.
This is a really bad one.
I ripened tomatoes.
So there was somebody eating mytomatoes in my garden and I was
like I'm going to take theseinto my she shed, which is like
(51:22):
my garden shed, and I'm going toripen them in there, and ha, ha
, ha, they won't get themanymore.
Well then a rat found them andsaid oh my gosh, this newly
planted she shed is beautiful,it's comfy, it's got a cushion
seat and they give me free foodhere, and so I'm not often
scared of, but for some reasonmy brain's, like rats, are
terrible.
So I let out like a murderscene scream and wouldn't go
(51:46):
back in until a friend of minewent in and scared it away.
And then I had to do peppermintoil, which actually did get rid
of the just essential oil.
Peppermint got rid of it, therat in my, in my shed, and I
will never again ripen tomatoesin a she shed.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Well, thank you for your vulnerability.
I appreciate your honestfailure stories because I think
this is what we need to sharealso, because when you're on
social media or on YouTube or Imean it's, you know, it's like
all a little magical world outthere.
But I think the takeaway isthat things happen, mistakes
(52:23):
happen.
It's no big deal.
I've burned plenty of things inmy kitchen before and I cook
for a living.
I mean it's not, it happens, Imean it's not, it's not fun but
it's not like yeah, but I meanit's.
I mean I've, I've made thingsthat were, yeah, Like I thought
were like a zero on the scale ofone to 10, you know or like
(52:43):
this just tastes terrible andlike what.
What did I?
You know what did I do, but Ithink that's just how you learn.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
It absolutely is.
But it's funny because I justwould assume that you've never
burned anything.
Isn't that silly?
But I would think, like yourbrain does think that like, oh
well, she's a chef, so of course.
Of course she's never had.
You had to learn somehow, right?
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yes, I daily to me, but I mean, but every once in a
while, like something willhappen.
I'm like, oh wow, like I can'tbelieve that.
I like that burned, Like whydid that happen?
You know?
Or you know something similar?
Something just doesn't tasteright, or and yeah, it just
that's part of how you getbetter, I think, at things.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
And and that self-talk, like be very
conscious of what you are sayingto yourself, because I could
easily have gone into who putslike delicious fruit out in a
shed where rodents can get to itLike they, you know.
Obviously it's not steel dooror anything.
I could have easily beat myselfup about it, but instead I
chose to go like oh yeah, that'sa very dumb mistake, but it
(53:46):
doesn't mean I'm dumb, it justmeans I made a mistake and
everything can be fixed.
There's no such thing as anirreversible mistake in terms of
homesteading, as long as you'rereally you know yeah, yes, you
just made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
You're not a mistake right.
So yes, it's just and it's alla learning process.
I mean, if you saw how I wasgardening 25 years ago versus
how I'm gardening now, you wouldthink I mean my know.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
You are in San Diego, right that area, so like your
seasons probably don't changethat much okay, and so summer is
(54:50):
tricky for us because it can beso hot that it's really not
safe to be out gardening all day.
And I'm not a um, I have a.
I have a pretty busy morningroutine because that's when I
have a lot of my energy, andthen in the evening I'm like ugh
, I don't want to go out.
But it's important to go out and, you know, tend to your garden
and so so what I've starteddoing recently is habit stacking
, watering my garden with guiltypleasure podcasts.
(55:13):
So the podcasts that I don'twant anyone to know I'm
listening to, they're silly,they're a waste of time, but if
I only listen to them while I'mwatering, I have a little more
motivation to go out, because Iused to be a Puritan, and I
still am, a lot of the timeswhere I just want to be with my
plants and not have somethingtalking at me, you know, because
I think we can add too much tous, but for me right now that's
(55:36):
a really good way to get outside.
When it's too hot and it's alittle late and it's hard for me
to get my motivation, oh well,I'll just watch that, I'll just
listen to that podcast and noone will know, except now.
All of your listeners will know.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Right.
Well, you can listen to thispodcast.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
That's right, this podcast would be great.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Yeah, but same.
I do the same.
If I'm feeling low energy orsomething like that, I'll put a
podcast or a book on orsomething just to break it up.
Or I do like going into mygarden with no noise whatsoever
and just you know it's being atpeace.
Yeah, yes.
Well, elizabeth, any othertakeaways about habits that you
can give my audience or you know, some imparting wisdom?
Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yes, I, I would say that the five minute rule is one
of my favorite things, and thenI will give you a little gift
for your, for your audiencemembers that would like it.
The five minute rule is justtry doing a habit for five
minutes and then giving yourselfpermission not to do it after.
And so for me, with the guiltypleasure podcast, like let's say
, that gets me out there.
But what really gets me outthere is saying I'm just going
(56:46):
to set the kitchen timer forfive minutes, I'm going to prune
that monster purple I don'teven know what the purple bush
is in front of my house that'sgrowing over all of my food.
Like I went away for a week andI came back and it's this
monster.
But if I just tell myself I'mjust going to prune it for five
minutes and then I can stop, Ireally truly do stop after five
minutes, and sometimes you wantto go longer.
But giving yourself thatpermission really stops you from
(57:10):
going.
Oh, I just don't have time.
Everybody has five minutes.
And then allow yourself to dothe whatever bad habit that you
typically have.
Like, let's say, you're goingto scroll through social media.
Fine, do the five minutes ofthe easy, of the habit that you
want to create and then rewardyourself with as long as you
want, as you would normally do,of the habit that you consider
not the best.
And so, for habit creation, Idid create a free habit tracker
(57:34):
that is available to youraudience.
You can get it atwwwcreatewellnessprojectcom.
Forward slash gift G, I, f, t.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Okay, great, I will put that also in the show notes
so people can grab that link.
Elizabeth, thank you so muchOnce again.
Every time we talk now, I justfeel inspired.
My next project is to makekefir.
That is my that's and I'm goingto look up.
So do you have your courseonline yet?
Speaker 2 (58:02):
No, I have probably about 10 more hours to do, but I
am going to send you the courseonce I'm done, so that you can
enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Okay, that would be wonderful, and then I will let
you know how that goes as well.
You're my accountabilitypartner now, sure, well, thank
you so much for being here again.
I really appreciate it, and Ihope this inspires everyone to
get growing or do somethinghomestead minded.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Thank you, heather.
This was so much fun.
Thank you for having me, greatThanks.
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