July 11, 2025 • 19 mins
Magnolia Network announced the premiere date for their new series Back to the Frontier, set to debut July 10, 2025 on Magnolia Network and Max. The series, executive produced by Chip and Joanna Gaines, follows three American families as they reimagine their lives as 1880s homesteaders, challenged to forgo the comforts of the present day for a more analog life on the frontier. "This series taps into something we've always believed-that stepping away from the noise of everyday life can bring you closer to what matters most," said Chip and Joanna Gaines. "It is proof that no matter where you find yourself, the most important part of home is the people you share it with." In the series, three families hailing from across the country join together in the wilderness surrounded by ten thousand acres of nature, without the modern conveniences of technology, running water, or electricity. The Lopers (Alabama), Hanna-Riggs (Texas), and Halls (Florida) must live on the frontier for eight weeks, reinforcing their own shelters, raising livestock, collecting food, and rationing their supplies. Through this immersive experience, the families will have to reflect on their relationships and navigate the challenges that come with an 1880s lifestyle. "This exciting new series invites viewers to step back in time and experience the challenges of the American frontier," said Magnolia Network President Allison Page. "By immersing three families in the realities of 1880s life, we provided them-and our viewers-an authentic glimpse into the resilience and grit required to survive. Making this series has been an unforgettable journey, and we trust audiences will find it both captivating and inspiring." Back to the Frontier will roll out with one installment weekly over the course of its eight-week series run. In the final episode, the audience will learn whether each of the families succeeded in the challenge of gathering enough resources for the homestead to make it through the winter and which families might not have made it on the frontier. "Going back to the frontier, it's going to be life-changing for all of us," one contestant says, while another adds, "We want to go backward so that we can go forward in the right direction." While the women and girls wipe away their makeup, kids place their video game systems and laptops in plastic bins, one parent says, "I want my kids to learn humility and hard work." The families then see their simple lodgings, and one woman expresses her shock at the bathroom situation. "We sit on that?" she asks.There's a lot of sweat - be it from farming, milking cows or other daily tasks - and even a few tears along the way, with some adjusting to the setting. "One out of three families fail when they're on the homestead, so we need to work together," one man says, leading to a montage of the three families helping each other accomplish tasks. Check out the trailer: Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrDuxOSG2XY
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today as well. Let me put that on my notes here.
All right, how are you three doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:08):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
What an amazing adventure that you guys are on. And
I mean that really from the deep soul here. And
the reason why is because so many of us would say, yeah,
I would like to go back into the past, but
I want to take the knowledge that I have today
back there, and that's what you guys are getting the
opportunity to do.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yes, that's all we got to take back was the knowledge.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
And we didn't have a lot of knowledge. Honestly, we
really got dropped off in the eighteen eighties and we
really had to figure it out. We had a little
help from an almanac, but it was very small information
and it was just an everyday task. Every day you're
learning something new and just trying to really figure out
because surviving was your main goal.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm from the state of Montana and I live here
in the Carolinas where we've built this this force. It
really is a man made forest, and so I understand
the connection with Lane, and I would like to know
how you guys have really changed, because the dirt does speak,
And how long did it take for you to listen.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Well, it didn't take long. We went there to listen.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
We went there to learn, We went there to get
something out of it, and that's exactly what we did.
We went there to see what it was like to
go backwards, so that way when we live our life
moving forward, we can make some changes in the right direction.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
One thing we learned is to appreciate our food. It
takes a lot to get food, to grow food and
make food, and you don't have all the choices that
we have today. Today we eat so conveniently, we buy whatever,
and we don't think about what we're putting into our bodies.
We're out there, we're growing our own food, so we're
putting the most purest thing that the earth is giving
us in our bodies. We're getting nutrition straight from the earth.
(01:46):
So it takes a lot less food for energy. And
one thing we learned eating cleaner. You do think a
lot cleaner and better.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Now when you talk about the food and the guardian
and stuff, I mean, once again going back to my
days in Montana and living out there with that big
open field, the thing is is that we we had cellars.
Did you have to build a seller? What were you
doing to preserve that food.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We did have a seller.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Luckily, we took over a cabin that already existed and
had a root seller. But we had to fill that
and we had to learn about it and preserve a
lot of food. That's part of the show that you're
gonna have to watch is like what do you do
when winter comes?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
So we had to prepare ourselves for that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, because one of the things that I did some
research on were these things that you know, everybody is
in love with pot pies and the real reason why
they even created the pot pie was to preserve the
veggies and meat and it was basically to protect it.
And then all of a sudden one day we started
eating the pot pie the outside shell.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Interesting, we didn't know then, but thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I will tell you, especially you Mia. Is the fact
that you know, the fact that you know, you guys
talk about the homestead. My mother, she was second generation
from the homestead, and so they ever called it the
farm or the ranch. She always said at the homestead.
Mom and Dad at the homestead. And it's because they
were in the latter part of the eighteen eighties and
Mom came from that.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
That's amazing awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So to watch this, I swear to God, you're giving
me a moment of this is what my mother must
have gone through. This is because I mean she lived
on the Powder River and it was the raw stuff.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
I think that a lot of people are going to
resonate with that. It is going to show them how
our grandparents are great grandparents lived and what they have
to do to get us to where we are now.
So many people benefited from this, from homesteadying and from
moving out west and just creating a community out there
(03:43):
and surviving. And the statistic is that one out of
three families didn't make it. So we had that in mind,
and you really have to watch to see if there's
any families that are that statistic.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
What an amazing opportunity to have a better life, you know,
if you want to come here, then you want to
want all this land, you have to work for it,
and if you're up for it and you can do it,
what a great reward, you know, what a great opportunity
for people.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Dolly Parton has been quoted to say that that country
music really is how they shared the local news. How
did you guys get to talk with other people? And
was it like listening to a country song.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I don't know that it was like that.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
But we did communicate, we did have, you know, other families,
and we had to build our own community.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
We made our own music.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
I think the fact out there we sang our own
songs and wrote songs, and that's what we did for
the entertainment, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
See, because once you start storytelling through music, I mean,
all of a sudden, you know, everything becomes whole.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes, yeah, we sure do have a lot of stories.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Yeah, I mean, Jeremy, we sat around the table. That
was all what you had. At the end of the day,
once the sun went down, we just had each other,
you know, we had to share our day. But a
lot of times Jeremy wroade music and it really does
tell the story. It gets us emotional when we hear
those songs because it tells the story of the changes
and how hard it is or how beautiful it was.
(05:12):
At the same time, we can share that. We can't
wait to share that music with everybody too.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You touched a little bit on you know, living through
the winter being from Montana. That's the reason why I
left Montana for the Carolinas. I had to get out
of there because those winters were so bad. How did
you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know, we had to deal with it at first.
When we got there, it was hot.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
We had a lot of bugs and a lot of holes,
and we had to deal with to patch up a
lot of holes. And you know, the hardest thing was
is that when we had to cook something, we had
to heat up the stove and that heat it up
the house.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
But before you knew.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
It, it started getting colder and colder and colder. And
we had a small wood stove and I'll tell you
that thing only lasted an hour. So we woke up
in the middle of the night just make a fire,
you know, to keep the play it's warm.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It was very challenging.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
The luxuries of today's living includes beautiful bathrooms on not
in eighteen eighty. Your bathrooms are different.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, they're very different. And even if you just wanted
to go to the bathroom, you had to get your
boots on and run. If you go in the middle
of the night, you had to. It was very scary
as pitch black and hopefully you didn't run into a
bear or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
It was.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
It was very challenging and scary out there.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I got the opportunity as a kid to milk those cows.
What about you, I mean, how difficult was it? And
what did your hands feel like? Because I know what
my hands, you know, just thinking about it, they ache.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Yeah. So when we got a cow finally, I was
so excited. I was like, that will be my job.
I was so excited, and then five minutes into it,
I was dreading it already an hour into it, I
barely had a glass of milk so and was trying
not to get kicked by the cow.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
It was.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
It was so scary, not scary, but just like I
felt defeated because I thought I could do it. It
looks easy, Yep, it was not.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Oh man. And to get them from not kicking you,
come on, I mean, it's about having a relationship with
that cow.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Yes, Eventually we learned how each other work, and you know,
I became a little better. I don't say I'm a pro,
but I definitely got what we needed.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So now, just between us, did you talk baby talk
with the cow? Because I did the softer I talked
with that cow when I was milking her. Oh my god,
that was like, okay, we're connected now, Yes.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
I mean she became almost like a pet, but like
a best friend.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
So I loved her and we loved giving her hugs
and just cutting her and going out there and just
spending time with her. And when it came down to
milking her, it was just like, Okay, this is.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
You and me.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Let's do this girl. And it was special and I
was sad too hard from her.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Please do not move. There's more with Lena Jeremy and
me A Hall coming up next. Hey, thanks for coming
back to my conversation with Lena Jeremy and me A Hall.
The show we're talking about is Back to the Frontier.
Let me ask you kind of a personal question. When
you're out on the land like that, spirituality can set
in and be very very strong. Did you change?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Absolutely, you're out there connecting.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
I mean, if you're into that, your whole vibration changes
out there, your whole frequency changes. You know, you don't
have all the distractions and the Wi Fi, the bluetooth,
you know, affecting you.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
So yeah, we we became in sync with each other.
We became in sync with what ourselves and we really
realize what's important in life and all those small things
that maybe stress us out Like for me, it was
like going into it makeup and what I was wearing
that became insignificant. And really I started realizing there's so
(08:59):
many things that are important in life. And we brought
that back to the twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
How were you able to learn from tears as well
as fears, because I mean, you know, let's dig in
deep here, and you know, just admit. I mean, those
things come pretty fast, and now you've got to learn
to listen to them and then react to them without
without it turning into something that's going to trip you
in the future.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
There were lots of tears and lots of fears, but
we had to embrace it. We signed up for this
and we're not the type of family that is going
to complain. We went out there. It was like a marathon.
Nobody signs up to run a marathon and is crying
at the beginning before the marathon starts, right, everybody's pumped up.
(09:43):
They want to really go through it and finish. And
that's how we embraced us. We as a family said Okay,
we're going to do this. We're here for each other
and whatever it takes, right and you'll see, there were
so many challenges. There's times that we didn't know what
was next, if we were going to see the next day.
(10:03):
But yeah, we really embraced it and we leaned on
each other.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Did you at least get to keep a journal? Or
was that too twenty twenty five to get something like that?
I mean, I realized you couldn't have a writing instrument
or a pencil as we know it today. But did
you at least get to write?
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Yeah? I actually did have a journal that I would
write in pretty much every day. You know, we talk
about what we did, how we fell, and I still
have that today. So that's something I got to keep
and I hold very dear to me.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
What about now eighteen eighties? Of course, my mind is
going back to Okay, they were using mud in between
the logs in the cabin. Did you guys have to
mud up a house?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
We actually used moths.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
We found a lot of that in the crack looked
out really well. Wow, a lot of bugs, a lot
of mosquitoes coming through, a lot of sunlight coming through.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
But yeah, that's the trick.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
And you'll see, like Lena and I are innovators and
we're very handy, so we can't live anywhere without taking
it and making it our own.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah, you've probably seen the first episode. I'm all smiled.
So I went in that cabin and I was looking
around and I'm like, Okay, I'm going to make this
a home. This is what I do. I can go
into any space and envision a home or a beautiful space.
And I was hoping that I would get that opportunity,
and I was excited for the challenge. This was my
biggest challenge yet into decorating or making a space a home.
(11:32):
And yeah, you just have to think outside the box.
We went outside, picked a big handful of moss, started
doing it, and it started looking pretty and we liked it.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Actually, we were dragging boulders out of the river just
to make a sidewalk part of our cabin. You have
to see, we did a lot to make that place
our home and a little bit of time we were there,
but we were busy the whole time.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I've heard them home. I've heard the word home a
lot today. Now I've got to ask a question. You
have to have cried big tears when it was time
to go to your other home back in the reality
of today.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Yeah, we definitely were attached to the wilderness to living
out there that was our home. Like as soon as
we were there and spent the first night there, we
had to make that place better and comfortable, and after
spending all that time, it really became ours. I mean,
it's very personal, and just watching the show and seeing
it brings us back there and it touches all those emotions.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We really really really love it out there.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
You know, you were talking about the challenges that you
faced on a daily basis one of the things that
I think that I would weaken out on when you
had to ration supplies. How did you find the transparency
and the honesty with each other to sit there and say,
we got to cut back. If we don't cut back,
we're in trouble.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Yes, that's one of the realities that you had to face,
right and we knew, okay, this is what we hung
up and certain things we had never tried, certain can meets,
or if you wanted a potato, you had to go
dig it out of the garden. You really didn't know
how many potatoes were in the garden, right or howefully
we're going to be So every time we dug for potatoes,
(13:09):
which MEO was amazing at she would either get a tiny.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Potato or a huge potato.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Though it feed us all, so you could be very
happy or very disappointed. And we didn't want to be like, oh,
let's feast today if there was not going to be
anything tomorrow. So we really quickly learned that, Okay, you
do have to ration, you have to think clearly. We
can't think on emotion right right now, or because we
worked so hard and we're starving, we're going to feast
(13:35):
because we can't run to the grocery store right now.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So let me ask you this question. Because we grew
potatoes up in Montana and I and we had potato shovels.
First of all, in eighteen eighty you didn't have potato
shovels like I had. But the thing is, though, is
that if I were your child, would you be upset
with me? Because what I would do is I would
reach into that ground, grab a potato and eat it
right there on the spot. And if we're rationing, oh
my god, that's a knucklehead moment.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
I definitely did have a lot of fun finding potatoes.
It was kind of like my little treasure hunt every day.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Yeah. Yeah, she didn't have any help. She really had
to like dig her hands in the dirt.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Did you find any relics because I used to find
old medicine bottles.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Oh wow, No, I didn't find any of those, just potatoes.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
But and see, I don't think the average listener understands
how deep you have to dig for those potatoes because
they grow downward, do they not?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Absolutely. It was a real treasure hunt for sure.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
And you also had to protect the potato plant, like
you can't just tear it up and find nothing, and
then you destroyed your potato plant because that's tomorrow's meal,
the next week's meal, so it's very sensitive. You had
to be careful and try and find the right potatoes
without destroying it.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
At the same time, when we were cooking dinner and
we're like, oh, what if we get some herbs from
the garden, it's right there here, take this knife, go
get you know, some herbs, or for me, a few
tomatoes from the garden, it was so nice to have
that too. So there were challenges, but there were also
beautiful moments where we were like, oh, let's go get
that the freshest tomato we've ever eaten.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Wow, I can't imagine the culture shock that you went
through when you stepped into your very first grocery store
since the show, because I mean you said it earlier,
there's nothing like, you know, growing your own fruits and veggies.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah, we look at grocery stores a lot differently now,
you know, Like to be honest with you, like most
of it's poisonous. You know, most of it's bad, all
these preservatives and all these sugars and different things. And
being on the frontier, we didn't have a lot of ingredients.
You know, we had the essentials and that's how we're
living our life now, just the bare minimum.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
What do we need. We don't need all these ingredients
and things.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
And when it comes to buying food, we're reading labels
and we're buying less and less packaged foods and making
our own.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Now, yeah, and break the grocery store run. Now it's
like ours because we're every label. We're choosing every organic
vegetable and fruit and inspecting everything. Because we became judgmental,
we saw the best that came right off the ground,
and now we just kind of wanted that to keep that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Do you think the average person could step away from
their world and do what you guys did.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
I don't think so people are so often to the
convenience today of life that you know, nobody wants to
work for things like that.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
So no, it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So how do you deal with with that kind of
an attitude in the way of because there are a
lot of people that don't even want to work. They'll
show up, but they don't want to work. And I
came from that farm life men mentality where it's like
you got to bust your butt or there's not going
to be a payoff in the end. You guys have
lived now.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, well, you learn reward through hard work. You know,
if you want to live really good, you got to
work harder. That's what we had to do out there.
If we learned that you couldn't e splurge and just
eat everything in one shot. You had to pay yourself.
And you know, same thing with work. The more we did,
the more we benefited from it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Now, at any time did you think of Laura Ingles
during this whole entire thing? Yeah, yeah, have puinty, because
I mean, in my heart, it's like you guys lived
little house on the prairie.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah, it was. I was Charles Ingalls.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It was great, but yeah it was crazy, you know,
seeing my family for the first time, coming out looking
like little house in the prairie. You know, it was very,
very different to see your family. But before you knew it,
we got used to it. I mean I felt like
Humpty dumpty in my clothes out.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
There and.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Suck. It was a shock for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
As the viewer. The first thing that I thought when
I saw you guys in the clothes, I went, oh,
this is gonna be like one of those theme parks
where they go get one of those old fashioned photos.
Oh that's so cute. And then all of a sudden,
you know, you guys stay in those clothes and it's like, oh,
wait a second, this is not a picture.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, it was rough.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
We only had two pair of clothes and they weren't
even ours. There were someone else's. They didn't fit us,
you know, mine were way too big. I'm not into
baggy clothes, but I had to be for that.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
But we made it work. You know, we were all
in the same position.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
You know, Wow, where can people go to find out
more about you guys? Because there's no way that you're
going to let this thing stop there's just something about
you that's going to grow forward and you guys are
going to be doing other projects.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yes, we are. You can find us.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
On social Yeah, we're on a social media Instagram, TikTok
all that stuff. Lena Hall, Jeremy Hall, Mia Hall and Yeah,
so you can find us and you'll see what we're
doing now. We are implementing certain things and we're learning
every day and you'll be surprised what you'll find from us.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah. I have some new music coming out too.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I wrote five songs on the Frontier and I have
that coming out on all music platforms. So there's a
lot of stories in the music and you'll have to
check that out as well.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Jeremy, we're gonna have to get back together on that
because I love to sit down with singer songwriters and
break down the song so that listeners have a greater
relationship with that music. So when you're ready to release that,
we've got to talk again.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I would love to and I would love to come
in and perform too.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Oh that would be awesome, dude. Let's get you on that.
Patsy clin to her Man, where she came into every
radio station and played until she became famous.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Yes, I was just in Connecticut last week recording. I
recorded four songs up there in Westbrook.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Wow, Well, please come back to this show anytime in
the future. The door is always going to be open
for you, guys.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
All right, sounds good. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Be brilliant today.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Okay, all right, you too, Thank you, Bakan. You
Today as well. Let me put that on my notes here.
All right, how are you three doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:08):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
What an amazing adventure that you guys are on. And
I mean that really from the deep soul here. And
the reason why is because so many of us would say, yeah,
I would like to go back into the past, but
I want to take the knowledge that I have today
back there, and that's what you guys are getting the
opportunity to do.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yes, that's all we got to take back was the knowledge.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
And we didn't have a lot of knowledge. Honestly, we
really got dropped off in the eighteen eighties and we
really had to figure it out. We had a little
help from an almanac, but it was very small information
and it was just an everyday task. Every day you're
learning something new and just trying to really figure out
because surviving was your main goal.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm from the state of Montana and I live here
in the Carolinas where we've built this this force. It
really is a man made forest, and so I understand
the connection with Lane, and I would like to know
how you guys have really changed, because the dirt does speak,
And how long did it take for you to listen.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Well, it didn't take long. We went there to listen.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
We went there to learn, We went there to get
something out of it, and that's exactly what we did.
We went there to see what it was like to
go backwards, so that way when we live our life
moving forward, we can make some changes in the right direction.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
One thing we learned is to appreciate our food. It
takes a lot to get food, to grow food and
make food, and you don't have all the choices that
we have today. Today we eat so conveniently, we buy whatever,
and we don't think about what we're putting into our bodies.
We're out there, we're growing our own food, so we're
putting the most purest thing that the earth is giving
us in our bodies. We're getting nutrition straight from the earth.
(01:46):
So it takes a lot less food for energy. And
one thing we learned eating cleaner. You do think a
lot cleaner and better.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Now when you talk about the food and the guardian
and stuff, I mean, once again going back to my
days in Montana and living out there with that big
open field, the thing is is that we we had cellars.
Did you have to build a seller? What were you
doing to preserve that food.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We did have a seller.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Luckily, we took over a cabin that already existed and
had a root seller. But we had to fill that
and we had to learn about it and preserve a
lot of food. That's part of the show that you're
gonna have to watch is like what do you do
when winter comes?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
So we had to prepare ourselves for that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, because one of the things that I did some
research on were these things that you know, everybody is
in love with pot pies and the real reason why
they even created the pot pie was to preserve the
veggies and meat and it was basically to protect it.
And then all of a sudden one day we started
eating the pot pie the outside shell.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Interesting, we didn't know then, but thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I will tell you, especially you Mia. Is the fact
that you know, the fact that you know, you guys
talk about the homestead. My mother, she was second generation
from the homestead, and so they ever called it the
farm or the ranch. She always said at the homestead.
Mom and Dad at the homestead. And it's because they
were in the latter part of the eighteen eighties and
Mom came from that.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
That's amazing awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So to watch this, I swear to God, you're giving
me a moment of this is what my mother must
have gone through. This is because I mean she lived
on the Powder River and it was the raw stuff.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
I think that a lot of people are going to
resonate with that. It is going to show them how
our grandparents are great grandparents lived and what they have
to do to get us to where we are now.
So many people benefited from this, from homesteadying and from
moving out west and just creating a community out there
(03:43):
and surviving. And the statistic is that one out of
three families didn't make it. So we had that in mind,
and you really have to watch to see if there's
any families that are that statistic.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
What an amazing opportunity to have a better life, you know,
if you want to come here, then you want to
want all this land, you have to work for it,
and if you're up for it and you can do it,
what a great reward, you know, what a great opportunity
for people.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Dolly Parton has been quoted to say that that country
music really is how they shared the local news. How
did you guys get to talk with other people? And
was it like listening to a country song.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I don't know that it was like that.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
But we did communicate, we did have, you know, other families,
and we had to build our own community.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
We made our own music.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
I think the fact out there we sang our own
songs and wrote songs, and that's what we did for
the entertainment, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
See, because once you start storytelling through music, I mean,
all of a sudden, you know, everything becomes whole.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes, yeah, we sure do have a lot of stories.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Yeah, I mean, Jeremy, we sat around the table. That
was all what you had. At the end of the day,
once the sun went down, we just had each other,
you know, we had to share our day. But a
lot of times Jeremy wroade music and it really does
tell the story. It gets us emotional when we hear
those songs because it tells the story of the changes
and how hard it is or how beautiful it was.
(05:12):
At the same time, we can share that. We can't
wait to share that music with everybody too.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You touched a little bit on you know, living through
the winter being from Montana. That's the reason why I
left Montana for the Carolinas. I had to get out
of there because those winters were so bad. How did
you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know, we had to deal with it at first.
When we got there, it was hot.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
We had a lot of bugs and a lot of holes,
and we had to deal with to patch up a
lot of holes. And you know, the hardest thing was
is that when we had to cook something, we had
to heat up the stove and that heat it up
the house.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
But before you knew.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
It, it started getting colder and colder and colder. And
we had a small wood stove and I'll tell you
that thing only lasted an hour. So we woke up
in the middle of the night just make a fire,
you know, to keep the play it's warm.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It was very challenging.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
The luxuries of today's living includes beautiful bathrooms on not
in eighteen eighty. Your bathrooms are different.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, they're very different. And even if you just wanted
to go to the bathroom, you had to get your
boots on and run. If you go in the middle
of the night, you had to. It was very scary
as pitch black and hopefully you didn't run into a
bear or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
It was.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
It was very challenging and scary out there.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I got the opportunity as a kid to milk those cows.
What about you, I mean, how difficult was it? And
what did your hands feel like? Because I know what
my hands, you know, just thinking about it, they ache.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Yeah. So when we got a cow finally, I was
so excited. I was like, that will be my job.
I was so excited, and then five minutes into it,
I was dreading it already an hour into it, I
barely had a glass of milk so and was trying
not to get kicked by the cow.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
It was.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
It was so scary, not scary, but just like I
felt defeated because I thought I could do it. It
looks easy, Yep, it was not.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Oh man. And to get them from not kicking you,
come on, I mean, it's about having a relationship with
that cow.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Yes, Eventually we learned how each other work, and you know,
I became a little better. I don't say I'm a pro,
but I definitely got what we needed.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So now, just between us, did you talk baby talk
with the cow? Because I did the softer I talked
with that cow when I was milking her. Oh my god,
that was like, okay, we're connected now, Yes.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
I mean she became almost like a pet, but like
a best friend.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
So I loved her and we loved giving her hugs
and just cutting her and going out there and just
spending time with her. And when it came down to
milking her, it was just like, Okay, this is.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
You and me.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Let's do this girl. And it was special and I
was sad too hard from her.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Please do not move. There's more with Lena Jeremy and
me A Hall coming up next. Hey, thanks for coming
back to my conversation with Lena Jeremy and me A Hall.
The show we're talking about is Back to the Frontier.
Let me ask you kind of a personal question. When
you're out on the land like that, spirituality can set
in and be very very strong. Did you change?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Absolutely, you're out there connecting.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
I mean, if you're into that, your whole vibration changes
out there, your whole frequency changes. You know, you don't
have all the distractions and the Wi Fi, the bluetooth,
you know, affecting you.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
So yeah, we we became in sync with each other.
We became in sync with what ourselves and we really
realize what's important in life and all those small things
that maybe stress us out Like for me, it was
like going into it makeup and what I was wearing
that became insignificant. And really I started realizing there's so
(08:59):
many things that are important in life. And we brought
that back to the twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
How were you able to learn from tears as well
as fears, because I mean, you know, let's dig in
deep here, and you know, just admit. I mean, those
things come pretty fast, and now you've got to learn
to listen to them and then react to them without
without it turning into something that's going to trip you
in the future.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
There were lots of tears and lots of fears, but
we had to embrace it. We signed up for this
and we're not the type of family that is going
to complain. We went out there. It was like a marathon.
Nobody signs up to run a marathon and is crying
at the beginning before the marathon starts, right, everybody's pumped up.
(09:43):
They want to really go through it and finish. And
that's how we embraced us. We as a family said Okay,
we're going to do this. We're here for each other
and whatever it takes, right and you'll see, there were
so many challenges. There's times that we didn't know what
was next, if we were going to see the next day.
(10:03):
But yeah, we really embraced it and we leaned on
each other.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Did you at least get to keep a journal? Or
was that too twenty twenty five to get something like that?
I mean, I realized you couldn't have a writing instrument
or a pencil as we know it today. But did
you at least get to write?
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Yeah? I actually did have a journal that I would
write in pretty much every day. You know, we talk
about what we did, how we fell, and I still
have that today. So that's something I got to keep
and I hold very dear to me.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
What about now eighteen eighties? Of course, my mind is
going back to Okay, they were using mud in between
the logs in the cabin. Did you guys have to
mud up a house?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
We actually used moths.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
We found a lot of that in the crack looked
out really well. Wow, a lot of bugs, a lot
of mosquitoes coming through, a lot of sunlight coming through.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
But yeah, that's the trick.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
And you'll see, like Lena and I are innovators and
we're very handy, so we can't live anywhere without taking
it and making it our own.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah, you've probably seen the first episode. I'm all smiled.
So I went in that cabin and I was looking
around and I'm like, Okay, I'm going to make this
a home. This is what I do. I can go
into any space and envision a home or a beautiful space.
And I was hoping that I would get that opportunity,
and I was excited for the challenge. This was my
biggest challenge yet into decorating or making a space a home.
(11:32):
And yeah, you just have to think outside the box.
We went outside, picked a big handful of moss, started
doing it, and it started looking pretty and we liked it.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Actually, we were dragging boulders out of the river just
to make a sidewalk part of our cabin. You have
to see, we did a lot to make that place
our home and a little bit of time we were there,
but we were busy the whole time.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I've heard them home. I've heard the word home a
lot today. Now I've got to ask a question. You
have to have cried big tears when it was time
to go to your other home back in the reality
of today.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Yeah, we definitely were attached to the wilderness to living
out there that was our home. Like as soon as
we were there and spent the first night there, we
had to make that place better and comfortable, and after
spending all that time, it really became ours. I mean,
it's very personal, and just watching the show and seeing
it brings us back there and it touches all those emotions.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We really really really love it out there.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
You know, you were talking about the challenges that you
faced on a daily basis one of the things that
I think that I would weaken out on when you
had to ration supplies. How did you find the transparency
and the honesty with each other to sit there and say,
we got to cut back. If we don't cut back,
we're in trouble.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Yes, that's one of the realities that you had to face,
right and we knew, okay, this is what we hung
up and certain things we had never tried, certain can meets,
or if you wanted a potato, you had to go
dig it out of the garden. You really didn't know
how many potatoes were in the garden, right or howefully
we're going to be So every time we dug for potatoes,
(13:09):
which MEO was amazing at she would either get a tiny.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Potato or a huge potato.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Though it feed us all, so you could be very
happy or very disappointed. And we didn't want to be like, oh,
let's feast today if there was not going to be
anything tomorrow. So we really quickly learned that, Okay, you
do have to ration, you have to think clearly. We
can't think on emotion right right now, or because we
worked so hard and we're starving, we're going to feast
(13:35):
because we can't run to the grocery store right now.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So let me ask you this question. Because we grew
potatoes up in Montana and I and we had potato shovels.
First of all, in eighteen eighty you didn't have potato
shovels like I had. But the thing is, though, is
that if I were your child, would you be upset
with me? Because what I would do is I would
reach into that ground, grab a potato and eat it
right there on the spot. And if we're rationing, oh
my god, that's a knucklehead moment.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
I definitely did have a lot of fun finding potatoes.
It was kind of like my little treasure hunt every day.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Yeah. Yeah, she didn't have any help. She really had
to like dig her hands in the dirt.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Did you find any relics because I used to find
old medicine bottles.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Oh wow, No, I didn't find any of those, just potatoes.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
But and see, I don't think the average listener understands
how deep you have to dig for those potatoes because
they grow downward, do they not?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Absolutely. It was a real treasure hunt for sure.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
And you also had to protect the potato plant, like
you can't just tear it up and find nothing, and
then you destroyed your potato plant because that's tomorrow's meal,
the next week's meal, so it's very sensitive. You had
to be careful and try and find the right potatoes
without destroying it.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
At the same time, when we were cooking dinner and
we're like, oh, what if we get some herbs from
the garden, it's right there here, take this knife, go
get you know, some herbs, or for me, a few
tomatoes from the garden, it was so nice to have
that too. So there were challenges, but there were also
beautiful moments where we were like, oh, let's go get
that the freshest tomato we've ever eaten.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Wow, I can't imagine the culture shock that you went
through when you stepped into your very first grocery store
since the show, because I mean you said it earlier,
there's nothing like, you know, growing your own fruits and veggies.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah, we look at grocery stores a lot differently now,
you know, Like to be honest with you, like most
of it's poisonous. You know, most of it's bad, all
these preservatives and all these sugars and different things. And
being on the frontier, we didn't have a lot of ingredients.
You know, we had the essentials and that's how we're
living our life now, just the bare minimum.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
What do we need. We don't need all these ingredients
and things.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
And when it comes to buying food, we're reading labels
and we're buying less and less packaged foods and making
our own.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Now, yeah, and break the grocery store run. Now it's
like ours because we're every label. We're choosing every organic
vegetable and fruit and inspecting everything. Because we became judgmental,
we saw the best that came right off the ground,
and now we just kind of wanted that to keep that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Do you think the average person could step away from
their world and do what you guys did.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
I don't think so people are so often to the
convenience today of life that you know, nobody wants to
work for things like that.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
So no, it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So how do you deal with with that kind of
an attitude in the way of because there are a
lot of people that don't even want to work. They'll
show up, but they don't want to work. And I
came from that farm life men mentality where it's like
you got to bust your butt or there's not going
to be a payoff in the end. You guys have
lived now.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, well, you learn reward through hard work. You know,
if you want to live really good, you got to
work harder. That's what we had to do out there.
If we learned that you couldn't e splurge and just
eat everything in one shot. You had to pay yourself.
And you know, same thing with work. The more we did,
the more we benefited from it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Now, at any time did you think of Laura Ingles
during this whole entire thing? Yeah, yeah, have puinty, because
I mean, in my heart, it's like you guys lived
little house on the prairie.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah, it was. I was Charles Ingalls.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It was great, but yeah it was crazy, you know,
seeing my family for the first time, coming out looking
like little house in the prairie. You know, it was very,
very different to see your family. But before you knew it,
we got used to it. I mean I felt like
Humpty dumpty in my clothes out.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
There and.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Suck. It was a shock for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
As the viewer. The first thing that I thought when
I saw you guys in the clothes, I went, oh,
this is gonna be like one of those theme parks
where they go get one of those old fashioned photos.
Oh that's so cute. And then all of a sudden,
you know, you guys stay in those clothes and it's like, oh,
wait a second, this is not a picture.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, it was rough.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
We only had two pair of clothes and they weren't
even ours. There were someone else's. They didn't fit us,
you know, mine were way too big. I'm not into
baggy clothes, but I had to be for that.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
But we made it work. You know, we were all
in the same position.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
You know, Wow, where can people go to find out
more about you guys? Because there's no way that you're
going to let this thing stop there's just something about
you that's going to grow forward and you guys are
going to be doing other projects.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yes, we are. You can find us.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
On social Yeah, we're on a social media Instagram, TikTok
all that stuff. Lena Hall, Jeremy Hall, Mia Hall and Yeah,
so you can find us and you'll see what we're
doing now. We are implementing certain things and we're learning
every day and you'll be surprised what you'll find from us.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah. I have some new music coming out too.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I wrote five songs on the Frontier and I have
that coming out on all music platforms. So there's a
lot of stories in the music and you'll have to
check that out as well.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Jeremy, we're gonna have to get back together on that
because I love to sit down with singer songwriters and
break down the song so that listeners have a greater
relationship with that music. So when you're ready to release that,
we've got to talk again.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I would love to and I would love to come
in and perform too.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Oh that would be awesome, dude. Let's get you on that.
Patsy clin to her Man, where she came into every
radio station and played until she became famous.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Yes, I was just in Connecticut last week recording. I
recorded four songs up there in Westbrook.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Wow, Well, please come back to this show anytime in
the future. The door is always going to be open
for you, guys.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
All right, sounds good. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Be brilliant today.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Okay, all right, you too, Thank you, Bakan. You
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