May 21, 2025 • 52 mins
Ever wondered if you could turn your suburban backyard—or even your apartment windowsill—into a mini homestead? In Episode 241 of Late Boomers, Merry Elkins and Cathy Worthington sit down with Elizabeth Bruckner, author of The Homesteader Mindset, to explore the transformative journey from city dweller to self-sufficient homesteader. Elizabeth shares her inspiring story of embracing homesteading during the pandemic, highlighting how she overcame her initial lack of gardening skills to cultivate resilience and resourcefulness. Discover how intentional living can reduce toxic loads, boost mental health, and lead to a more fulfilling life. Elizabeth's insights reveal that anyone can start small, whether it's cooking from scratch or growing herbs in tiny spaces. Plus, she offers a free habit tracker to help kickstart your homesteading adventure. Tune in for practical advice, encouragement, and a fresh perspective on living intentionally. Don't miss this episode packed with inspiration and actionable tips!
Elizabeth Bruckner's Bio:
Elizabeth Bruckner is the author of The Homesteader Mindset; a book that will transform the way you view self-sufficiency and give you the tools and practical tips needed for a more meaningful life. Elizabeth’s book has quickly become a must-read for every person who dreams of creating sustainable living through traditional skills and common sense. Her book outlines mental health principles that she has used for over a decade in her acupuncture practice.
She holds a Master of Science in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Her area of expertise is glowing mental health. She empowers her patients utilizing the Five Element Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the power of habit creation. Elizabeth’s ground-breaking methods in self-development for the mind and body have been incorporated by a wide spectrum of budding homesteaders and wellness seekers. You can find out more at www.CreateWellnessProject.com.
Connect with Elizabeth:
Homestead Habit Tracker and Habit Formation Guide: www.createwellnessproject.com/gift
Website: www.createwellnessproject.com
Thank you for listening. Please check out @lateboomers on Instagram and our website lateboomers.us. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to watch it or listen to more of our episodes, you will find Late Boomers on your favorite podcast platform and on our new YouTube Late Boomers Podcast Channel. We hope we have inspired you and we look forward to your becoming a member of our Late Boomers family of subscribers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Merry (00:01):
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy (00:14):
Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating
your third act with style,power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy
Worthington.
Merry (00:24):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you
conversations withentrepreneurs, entertainers, and
people with vision who aremaking a difference in the
world.
Cathy (00:34):
Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the
ride on each interview,recounting the journey our
guests have taken to get wherethey are, inspiring you to
create your own path to success.Let's get started.
Hi there. I'm Cathy Worthington. Welcome to our
(00:55):
latest episode of late boomers.I'm here with my cohost, Mary
Elkins, and we are welcomingtoday a new guest, Elizabeth
Bruckner, the author of thebook, the Homesteader Mindset.
Merry (01:09):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Elizabeth is known as the
fermentation maven. She's anexpert on fermentation and
composting and an acupuncturistas well. Welcome, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Bruckner (01:23):
Thank you both for having me today.
Cathy (01:26):
Tell us about background. Tell us about your background
and how you discovered gardeningand composting and what led you
to being an expert inhomesteading.
Elizabeth Bruckner (01:37):
It's funny. I fell into homesteading and I
think I did homesteading beforeI knew what it was, which I
think a lot of your listenersmight be homesteaders and not
know it. Homesteading has manyspokes to the wheel. And so
during the pandemic, I actuallybecame aware of how fragile our
food system was, and it was a itwas a big culture shock because
(02:00):
I've grown up in a veryprosperous country. And I come
from a family of war refugeesfrom Belarus during World War
two.
And so I'd heard talks of nothaving food on the shelves, but
it always been stories. And Iactually visited the Russia
during the fall of the IronCurtain, and I remember seeing
(02:20):
empty shelves and going, wow.That's I'm so glad that doesn't
happen in America. And then thepandemic happened and our
shelves were empty. And Iattempted to get garlic and
ginger one day, and I was unableto get these two organic
produce.
The produce section was waspretty wiped out. And I remember
coming home to my husband andsaying, I'm really worried.
(02:42):
Like, this is concerning to me.This is this doesn't happen in
in our in our lives. And hesaid, well, maybe you should
consider growing some food inthe backyard.
I mean, we have we have a littlebit of space. I live in the
suburbs of Los Angeles. And Ikind of cocked my head to the
side and said, do you know me?Like, we've been married fifteen
(03:02):
something years. Are you awarethat I kill everything in the
backyard?
There's nothing that lives. So Iwould I was I was known for
going to the grocery store. I'msorry, the garden store and
saying, please can you give mesomething that won't die? And
then I would take it home, andin two weeks it would die, and
then I would go back. It wasthis vicious cycle.
It was like they they couldn'tbreak up with me. I just kept
(03:23):
coming back and funding theirbusiness because I didn't know
how to grow food. And so Istarted You're giving
Merry (03:29):
hope to people who actually have that experience.
Elizabeth Bruckner (03:32):
That's right. I mean, I did not have a
green thumb at all, or nor did Iknow how to cook. I was a career
woman, and I thought I thought,you know, here I was preaching
to my patients that you need toeat whole foods, you need to eat
good nutrient dense foods, but Ididn't know how to cook. So I I
outsourced a lot of my food. Ioutsourced the growing of it.
I outsourced the preparing ofit. And when the pandemic hit, I
(03:56):
thought, I don't know how to bean adult. Like, it's time for me
to step inside to my home andactually take charge of the
things that I can be that I canbe responsible for. And so
that's when I started doinggardening and also learning how
to cook. Like, I didn't know howto bake a chicken.
I didn't know what broccolilooked like when it was growing
(04:17):
out of the ground. I mean, I wasa beginner and I was in my
forties. And so that's when Istarted looking up how to do
this in Southern Californiabecause, you know, every every
region in The United States hasa different growing, like,
growing requirements anddifferent plants that grow
there. And so I wasn't going totry to grow something here that
couldn't be grown. And then Iwas looking on YouTube and
(04:39):
looking through podcasts, andeverybody kept bringing up
homesteading.
I'm like, what in the world isthat? And then I was like,
that's interesting.
Merry (04:46):
To you because I don't really know.
Elizabeth Bruckner (04:49):
Right. What is homesteading?
Merry (04:51):
Yes. Yeah. What is homesteading?
Elizabeth Bruckner (04:54):
I used to think initially that
homesteading was mom paw kettle,and they're out in the
wilderness like Little House OnThe Prairie, and they've you
know, they're shooting bears tokeep them off their land, and
they make their own clothes. Andthat was that's the initial that
was the original version ofhomesteading. So back in 1862,
(05:14):
the government started a seriesof homesteading acts, which
allowed the federal governmentto grant 270,000,000 acres of
land to private owners. Sadly, alot of that went to very, very
rich people and but there were afew mom pa kettles that got
their 40 acres and a mule. Sothat is what most people think
about when they think abouthomesteading.
(05:35):
But for those of you that arenot watching on YouTube, but
you're listening on anotherplace that you listen to
podcasts, you will notice that Idid not make my clothes, and I
have running water, and I livein the suburbs. And so the new
homesteading, the modernhomesteading is a practice of
cultivating resilience throughan intentional way of living.
(05:55):
And this involves reducing yourtoxic load, building your gut
microbiome with nutrient densefood, potentially growing edible
landscaping, and connecting moredeeply with your innate
resourcefulness. Because we allour bodies know how to heal.
That I learned when I startedtraining to be an acupuncturist.
And our homes can heal too if wejust spend a little bit of
(06:16):
intentional time in in thepractice of homesteading.
Cathy (06:19):
Wow. Oh, I love that.
Merry (06:21):
Yeah. I do too. So
Cathy (06:25):
what is a homesteader?
Elizabeth Bruckner (06:29):
So a homesteader could be a number of
things. I would challenge yourlisteners to see if as we talk
today, they have any ounce ofhomesteading in them. If you're
cooking from scratch, you couldbe a homesteader. Absolutely.
One of the things that I sayoften when people are asking me,
like, what should I do when I'mfirst starting to learn how to
cook?
Because a lot of people just wedon't know how. We're busy
(06:51):
working. Is just buy, if you'rea meat eater, buy a Vegetarian
chicken. Buy a chicken, learnhow to bake it, and then you've
got four different meals thatyou can make just from baked
chicken. You can have chickensoup.
You can have chicken salad. Youcan have chicken with, you know,
a side of of vegetables. Andthen you can make a meat stock,
(07:11):
like a chicken chicken broththat you can use for medicinally
for your gut. So that's one wayis cooking traditional foods,
stepping out of the fast foodline, stepping out of the box
food. A lot of people think thatand I especially did.
Like, a lot of what I'm sayingright now is coming from, years
of of wisdom from experimentingwith things that didn't work
(07:32):
well for me. And one of thosethings is I thought that buying,
like, organic happy lookingboxes of food was healthy. And,
again, I was outsourcing andpeople were doing a lot of seed
oils in their food, in thepackaged foods. There was a lot
of preservatives. Even though itsaid organic, it wasn't healthy
for me.
Merry (07:51):
Right.
Elizabeth Bruckner (07:51):
And so when you make it yourself, you know
what you're getting. Anotherthing is growing edible
landscaping. So that could meangoing to the grocery store if
you live in an apartment, buyingjust a a little pot of basil and
clipping basil as you're cookingor putting throwing some basil
in water and just letting itbecome an herbal infusion. Now
(08:11):
I'm lucky enough to have a avery tiny, suburban plot, which
is a backyard filled withcement, but there's a little
planter around the cement, whichis around a pool. And so I can
grow food there, but for thosein an apartment, you can
actually grow food on yourwindowsill, you can use lighting
to do it.
There's a lot of ways that youcan do it in any place that
(08:32):
you're living with any type ofbody as well. So let's say you
have terrible back pain asidefrom getting acupuncture or
doing something to help withyour chronic pain, you can also,
you can also find ways to gardenand to cook while dealing with
back pain.
Merry (08:48):
Interesting.
Cathy (08:49):
That's great. Is there and also is there a link between
mental health and homesteading?
Elizabeth Bruckner (08:55):
Oh, that's a great question, Kathy. Thank
you. Yes. I I would say that,especially for Americans, I'm
not gonna speak for every personworldwide, but for Americans, we
have a chronic disease ofdepression and anxiety. And a
lot of that has to do with we'reliving in a fast paced world and
there's not a lot of room forhealth.
If you want to live a healthylife, you kind of have to step
(09:19):
off the treadmill and make spacefor it. And so what I often say,
and this is from a wise friendof mine that told me once, so
it's not something I created. Itis, the prescription for anxiety
is action, and
Cathy (09:34):
the
Elizabeth Bruckner (09:34):
prescription for hopelessness is gratitude.
And so if someone's feelingdepressed and hopeless and they
just don't think that they canthey can make it, I recommend,
walking around your house, andthis is from an author named
Honore Quarter. I recommendwalking around your house,
touching the things that youhave, and actually feeling
gratitude for them. So everymorning when I wake up, I will
(09:57):
lay in bed and go, oh my gosh.I'm so grateful for this warm
bed, for running water, forheat, for air conditioning,
whatever the gifts are that Ihave that I see at that moment.
And that really helps withmental health. Another thing
that homesteading does in termsof helping with mental health is
you're taking action because youare becoming more responsible
for your food, for your health,for your well-being, for your
(10:18):
community, for your family. Andthey there's a study that says,
folks that have habits that are,using their hands are happier.
So people that use their handsare actually happier. And
homesteading is all about usingyour hands.
You're growing. You're you'recreating. You're building in
some cases, and you're alsocooking and you're fermenting.
(10:40):
You're doing all sorts ofwonderful things. And there is a
there is a groundedness thatoccurs.
I believe for me, because I wasso allergic to the kitchen up
until my forties. I just Ididn't wanted nothing to do with
it. And then when I startedmaking food and sitting down, I
realized that there's like amindful practice that occurs
when you are making food foryour body. It's like you're set
(11:03):
you're going, okay. You're I'mI'm worth this.
I'm worth real food. And thenwhen I sit down with my husband,
he is a huge foodie, and so weused to do only great
restaurants. But now when I makefood, his pupils of his eyes get
heart shaped.
Merry (11:16):
So he's like
Elizabeth Bruckner (11:17):
he gets so excited because he can feel the
love. It's it's crazy.
Merry (11:21):
If you if you get really close, you can feel the heart's
good for relationships too.
Elizabeth Bruckner (11:25):
It is. It's nerdy. Yeah. It's really very
sweet.
Merry (11:30):
Yeah. I love that. I love that. That's great. Tell me
something.
What made you decide to author abook called The Homesteader
Mindset?
Elizabeth Bruckner (11:42):
You know, there's a number of reasons,
Mary. Thank you for asking thequestion. I would say the the
foremost in my mind is I am avery enthusiastic teacher of
what I learn. So when I waslearning languages, every time a
friend would ask me how I'mdoing, I would explain to them
how I'm creating habits to learnlanguages. And this has been
(12:04):
throughout my life.
I've been a mentor for manyyears for folks that, need other
type of spiritual practices. I,now that I'm homesteading, a lot
of my friends would be like, whyyou know, what's happening? Your
skin looks better. You have lesspain. You're happier.
I accidentally lost weightbecause I was eating really good
(12:25):
food. And so I'm always teachingthem, well, if you make kefir
cream in your it's kinda likesour cream. It's like a yogurt
kefir. It's really pronouncedkefir, but I can never remember
to say kefir. So kefir becausethat's what we say in America.
If you can make that, it's verysimple, then you can create
incredible benefits in your gut,which then helps your brain. So
(12:46):
what I recognize is when I eatwell, I feel well, and people
wanna know about it. And as apractitioner in the clinic and
in my online traditional Chinesemedicine sessions, a lot of,
folks want to heal their bodies.They know that their bodies are
capable of healing, but they'renot quite sure of the steps. And
so I really wanted to create abook that would teach you how to
(13:09):
take what seems impossible andmake it possible with really
simple, tiny, almost, it almostdoesn't seem like it would be
enough.
Like, I talk about starting witha five minute a day habit, and
then we just talk about changingthe mindset. You could actually
take the Homesteader Mindsetbook, and you could take that
(13:29):
book and translate it intoanything that you wanna do. I
wanna start to learn how tosing. And then you could take
the steps that I've created. Andthose steps are just about
creating routine because routineis everlasting.
Whereas willpower, like, I'mgonna get up and I'm gonna learn
how to sing or I'm gonna get upand I'm gonna learn how to how
to raise chickens. That is veryfinite. You will run out of it
(13:49):
quite quickly.
Merry (13:50):
Yeah. Mhmm. Making making looking at the most difficult
thing to do and thinking, I'lldo that now. I'll start with
that.
Cathy (13:58):
Yes. Well, are there things in the book like, how to
ferment and and how to makekefir? Are those in the book?
Elizabeth Bruckner (14:07):
Yes. There's a lot of information about how
to firstly find where to to getthese things. Because what I
realized is that with this book,because there's so many spokes,
there's so many things thatpeople might be interested. For
example, lots of homesteaderslove to make sourdough bread. I
do not.
I don't eat sourdough bread. Myhusband does, and we have a
baker at the farmer's marketthat makes exquisite forty eight
(14:28):
hour fermented sourdough. So I'mnever going to learn how to make
sourdough unless I have to. Ihave no desire. And there are,
as I said, many spokes of thewheel.
So there are hundreds of thingsthat people could want to learn.
What I help people do there area few things where I'm actually
saying here's a really easyrecipe or here's one thing that
you can do. But I took threedifferent families in urban
(14:48):
setting, suburban setting, and arural setting, and I showed the
listener I'm sorry, the readerthrough the stories how they
found the things that theyneeded to find. For example, if
they wanted to know kefir, youcould go to the back and see if
I wrote anything on Kiefer, butyou could also go to a, I have a
bonus a book bonus, which you'llboth see when you get the book.
(15:10):
I have a book bonus that givesyou links for everything that
I've learned so you can pick andchoose what you like.
And then also, how do you learnthese things? Because for me,
you know, I'm a little youngerthan a boomer, and I just wanna
say hat tip to the name. Lateboomers is adorable. And it's so
important that we have a voicefor our our wise elders. It's so
(15:33):
important.
And I just am I'm enthralledthat you you two are doing this
and that you have a really goodname. So what I recommend is for
me, I didn't know this is goingback ten years. I didn't know
that YouTube had something otherthan cat videos and makeup
tutorials. Like, I thoughtthat's all it was. I didn't so I
(15:53):
had no interest in going thereever because it didn't I had not
I didn't want a cat video.
Sometimes I do now, but I didn'twant any cat videos. I didn't
want any any makeup tutorials.And then I recognize that you
can learn anything. It's likehaving it's like having a wise
elder in your family online thatyou can go to. How do I change
the the faucet in my bathroom?
(16:13):
That's a version ofhomesteading, being resilient.
Right? How do I do composting?You can just type it in and
there it is. And it's veryvisual.
It's really good for visuallearners. So for me, I had to I
wanted to step back. For thoseof for those that are my,
parents' age that are my parentsare in their eighties, They're
not quite savvy with, YouTube.So I wanted to teach them how to
(16:35):
find what they're looking for.So if someone is has arthritic,
hands and they want a garden,they can actually go online and
and look up how to how to gardenwith arthritic hands.
And there will be tools that areavailable and and methods that
are available. On top of that,I, you know, I eventually will
do in a course on chronic painbecause I think that we need to
get people out of pain as well.
Merry (16:57):
Have you taught your your parents, to homestead a bit? Are
they out gardening? Is this intheir interest?
Elizabeth Bruckner (17:05):
Oh, my sweet parents. They're they are my mom
is this five foot two, spitfireof a woman, and my dad is
probably six two. And, you know,he has, he has a lot of
difficulties with long termdiabetes and and chronic
illness, but they are stilldoing things outside. So they
started raising goats before Iwas homesteading. And I remember
(17:27):
going, ma, dad, this this soundcrazy.
Why do you why are you raisinggoats? So they owe it but they
did it to, create brush. Theylive in a very rural area, so
they did it to clean out thebrush. So they actually had they
were raising lawnmowers,basically. And now they rent out
those lawnmowers to other peoplethat need to do forestry, like
forest cleaning.
And so they I think they startedhomesteading before I started
(17:51):
homesteading.
Merry (17:52):
Wow. Mhmm. Interesting. Oh, yeah. Do you I have another
question for you.
Yeah. Where do you have where doyou buy your food for cooking
healthfully? And have youchanged those habits from going
to say one type of market toanother?
Elizabeth Bruckner (18:10):
That's a very good question. Thank you,
Mary. And I I wanna say thatwhat I'm gonna say now is the
end result of years ofexperimentation. So I started by
going to, you know, the everydaygrocery store and buying I just
the first thing I started doingwas reading the labels on the
(18:30):
foods that I was buying. And ifthey had things that I couldn't
pronounce, I wouldn't buy it.
Mhmm. If I found pasta and theone pasta said, you know, wheat
and flour and the other one saidwheat flour and, you know, all
these other very big words thatsound very fancy, I would not
buy that one. And then I startedgoing to farmer's markets
(18:50):
because we're lucky enough inSouthern California to have
round round the year farmersmarkets. It's warm enough to do
that always. And so my husbandand I, this was probably, I
would say, ten years ago, Westarted voting with our dollars,
which was we really wanted tosupport local farmers.
We wanted to know who wastouching our food. We wanted to
(19:11):
get rid of the middleman. Wewanted to get away from big
food, big pharma, big ag. Andthe way that we could do that
was going to farmer's markets.So now Mhmm.
When I go to the farmer'smarket, I'm, you know, well
known because I I can say hello,Sarah, to the woman that, you
know, makes that raises mycarrots and brings them to the
farmer's market. And when therewas an egg scare, there was no
(19:33):
egg scare with my farmersbecause they were not gigantic
farms that were having issues.They were tiny farms that were
having issues. So right now, Iwould say 90% of my food is from
farmer's market, a nearbyfarmer's market. The other 10%,
like, it's difficult to getdairy.
I know of a I know of someonethat has dairy cows, but I'm not
(19:55):
willing to drive an hour. So Iwill go to a just a one step up.
It's a it's it's locally locallyowned grocery stores that have
milk that are from farms withinCalifornia. So I'll do that. And
then I also really like, there'san online there's two online
places where you can get foodthat is relatively inexpensive
(20:17):
that has a health bend to it.
I do I do say though, after Isay these two names that you do
need to still look at theingredients because they have
lots of stuff that isn't thathealthy. So one is
thrivemarket.com, and the otheris Azure Standard. I really like
Azure Standard. That'sazurestandard.com. I really like
Azure Standard because a lot ofit comes from their farm.
(20:41):
So and they source from fairtrade. They source from, people
that are taking good care oftheir animals and their crops.
So you're getting happy foodthere. And so when I need
something like coconut oil, Iwill order it from Azure
Standard.
Merry (20:55):
Ah, it's different there. It's the coconut oil is
different there versus themarket?
Elizabeth Bruckner (21:01):
Well, it's what it's doing is it's a number
of things. Number one, it'ssupporting that farm that farmer
because that particular farm isnot a big, gigantic, huge
corporation. And so a lot oftimes with grocery stores, we
have the farmers and then wehave the middleman, the sellers,
and then we have the farmer'smarket. I mean, then we have the
(21:23):
grocery store. And what'shappening is you're paying
everyone there.
And what I like to do is takeout the grocery store middleman,
take out the buyer middleman,and just pay the farmer so that
it supports more sustainablefarming. It supports more fair
trade, and the money's goingdirectly in the pocket of the
farmer.
Cathy (21:40):
That's great.
Elizabeth Bruckner (21:41):
Yeah. I started slow, though. I started
with just going to the grocerystore, just looking at labels.
Then then I would just on, youknow, nice days when I felt like
it, would go to the farmer'smarket in my fancy little, you
know, sundress. And and now it'sa it's something that I do every
weekend.
Like, that is that is my myshopping is I go to the farmer's
market.
Cathy (22:00):
That's great. And you talk about the three things that
turn a homesteader mindset intoa reality. So what are the three
things?
Elizabeth Bruckner (22:11):
Those three things are simple and again, you
can translate this into any typeof mindset that you want. The
first is pick a corner. Thesecond is immerse yourself in
found time. And the third ismake home studying a priority.
So let's talk a little bit aboutthese three things.
Picking a corner. What does thatmean? What I often recommend
that the listener or in the caseof my readers that are reading
(22:33):
the book, I recommend sittingdown for ten minutes and
daydreaming. What does ahomesteading what does
homesteading look like to me?What would be my ideal
homesteading adventure?
And so as we're listening tothis and somebody's going, oh,
you know, she doesn't wanna makesourdough,
Merry (22:49):
but I would love to put on
Elizabeth Bruckner (22:51):
an apron and make sourdough and share it on
Instagram with the pretty littleleaf, you know, one of the
little leaf patterns that peopleput on their bread. Like, that's
not my thing, but that might besomeone else's. And so sit, grab
a nice warm beverage, like a cupof tea or herbal infusion, sit
down and just think what wouldfeel incredible? What would my
wildest dreams look like interms of homesteading? And then
(23:12):
when you're looking at that andthat happens a lot like, Kathy,
you were talking about arelative that's moving soon into
a new home.
Like, they can sit down and go,what what is this house gonna
bring me? What do I want? Whatdo I envision in it? And maybe
that person will envision a herbgarden in the backyard, and
that's what they wanna talkabout and think about. And just
what, like, lights them up.
Or for me, my next step is Iwould love to get chickens in my
(23:35):
backyard. I would love to feedmy chickens the, you know, my
vegetable scraps because we havea lot of them and then have
these beautiful eggs that I canthat I can bring into the house.
I would love that. And so if Iwere, daydreaming about that, I
would think, okay, the firstthing that I want like, let's go
back to the the relative thathas a new home. They want this
herb garden.
(23:55):
The first thing I would think isjust what does an herb what will
an herb garden bring me? Ugh.Well, in the morning, I'll go
outside and I will snip off someparsley to put on the side of my
plate with my eggs in themorning, or I'll I'll use
rosemary in my chicken, and I'mgonna have rosemary, you know,
and I can just snip out. It's sogreat to go grocery shopping in
your backyard. It is so muchfun.
(24:17):
And then as you're looking atthat daydream, then you've
decided to pick a corner. Mycorner is I'm going to make a
small five herb herb garden.That is my corner. So now once
we found that corner, that's mydream of my home setting. It's
the corner of the homesteadingdream that feels really, really
good.
Then I'm going to immerseimmerse myself in found time. So
(24:38):
a lot of people talk about deadtime in language learning. Use
dead time to learn languages. Ireally don't like the term dead.
It just doesn't seem fun.
Like, who wants to use deadtime? So I use found time. And
found time happens whenever youare whenever you find yourself
looking for distraction,whenever you're grabbing for
(24:59):
distraction, you might beanytime that you're picking up
the cell phone and you're notexpecting a call and you're not
expecting a text, but you'repicking it up and you start
scrolling, that's found time.That's the five minutes that
turns into two hours. I mean,we've all been there.
Right? We've decided to go onfor five minutes. Next thing you
know, it's dark outside. Like,how did that happen? That is
found time.
And what you can do is you canharness that found time. And you
(25:22):
can do it by saying, forexample, let's say you really
like social media media. That'swhat you're into, and that's
what you grab for. You can makean account solely on
homesteading, and that accountcan be all about herb gardens.
What what does it look like inPinterest?
What are the most beautiful herbgardens? And then when you're
pulling for out that phone fordistraction, you're learning as
well. Oh, I didn't know thatit's really easy to grow mint in
(25:45):
shade. I had no idea. Have a lotof shade in my backyard.
And then that five minutes isnow five minutes that you're
using. The next thing that youdo in terms of immersing
yourself and found time iscreating habits around that. And
my book talks a lot about it,and at the end of the at the end
of our conversation, I'll makesure to offer a free gift for
habit stacking, habit stackingtrap tracker. And then the last
(26:09):
thing that we talk about, thethree, is making it a priority.
And this, I think, is reallyhard in our day and age because
we do have priorities.
Our priorities are make surethat there's a roof over our
head and that our children arefed and that we're you know? And
then if you go even a littlefarther, are we taking care of
ourselves by brushing our teethevery day? Are we eating well?
Are we moving our body? All ofthose very important things are
(26:31):
priorities, but sometimes theybecome overwhelming.
And if we just take one priorityand say, this is a priority for
joy. I'm gonna do this solelyfor joy, not for fear, not even
for preparation, just to ignitesome delight in my life, and you
make homesteading your prioritythere and you do five minutes a
day, you will wake up moreinvigorated every morning. So if
(26:53):
you wake up and you're like, ohmy gosh, today's the day I'm
gonna I'm gonna learn about howwhere I should plant my mint.
And then the next day, you'relike, okay. Now I'm gonna plan
how to get to the garden store.
And then there's another fiveminutes. Again, it's five minute
increments. Five minutes ofgoing to the garden store, can I
please have mint and bring ithome? Five minutes of planting
it. Every single every singleaction that you take towards
that priority, towards that thatvision of delight will then give
(27:16):
you the same wonder that you hadwhen you were five years old.
I mean, do you guys rememberwaking up waking up at five and
being excited? Right?
Merry (27:25):
Yeah. I love that. Talking about your book a little
bit, I and I think you justanswered the question that I had
for you as who would benefitfrom reading it. And do you even
have to well, do you have to bea homesteader to to read it? And
I think you answered.
Elizabeth Bruckner (27:43):
I think this is a a good question to focus on
because a lot of people will go,oh, well, no. Because I'm busy
or I'm a I'm a you know, I havea PhD in in microbiology, so I
shouldn't be getting my handsdirty. And that obviously isn't
for me. I would say that if youwant fulfillment, one of the
most important things is to getyour hands dirty, whether it's,
you know, making something inthe kitchen or creating
(28:05):
fermentation or playing withyour kids out in the in the
grass with bare feet or gettingyour hands dirty in the compost
pile or in the garden. Anyonecan be a homesteader regardless
of where you live, regardless ofyour age, and most importantly,
of your socioeconomic status.
Because I think that sometimespeople think, well, you know,
(28:25):
that's for bougie people thatare going, you know, like, oh,
you have to have a yard in orderto do this or you have to have
and that's not the case. AndI've actually talked about a few
ways that you can save money,and you can homesteading can
actually be something that'sreally good when you're doing it
on a budget.
Merry (28:43):
Oh,
Cathy (28:44):
yeah. Well, you talked a little bit about this, but tell
us a little bit more about whywillpower isn't enough to create
a life of traditional skills andwhat to add to that.
Elizabeth Bruckner (29:00):
Yes. I it's I think this is another one
that's really important torepeat because a lot of times
people think that, well, if I'mif I just had enough willpower,
I would be healthier or I wouldhave a better life. And yes,
willpower does have something todo with it. I think willpower is
really good for the first thirtyseconds of a habit, but
(29:23):
willpower is finite. So therehave been some studies done.
There's a great book called ThePower of Habits by Charles Duig,
and in it, there's a ton of,research on the brain. And one
of the studies showed that ifsomeone had to do a hard math
puzzle that they didn't like,and then they had to use
(29:43):
willpower like they had to thethe researchers said, okay, you
can have this cookie, but I needyou to wait as long as you can
before you have this cookie.Those that had to do the really
difficult math puzzle, so theyhad to concentrate, they had to
use their willpower to do that.When it came time to eat the
cookie, they ate it much fasterthan the others. Then the
control group was just, can youwait?
Just wait as long as you canbefore you eat this cookie. And
(30:05):
they were able to wait muchlonger because they hadn't
exhausted their willpower withsomething else. So willpower
yeah. Yeah. Willpower is finite.
I know it's that finite. It'sthat finite. And it and it does,
of course, it does regenerate.Like, every day is a new day,
but routine is everlasting. Sothere's a part of your brain
that's and many people havetalked about that.
(30:25):
We've got the prefrontal cortex,and for those of you that aren't
watching on video, I'm touchingmy forehead. The prefrontal
cortex is something that kind ofdifferentiates us from reptiles
and from from, animals thatdon't quite they don't raise
their young, so they don't havea lot of binding. And the
prefrontal cortex is all about,should I, shouldn't I? Is this
dangerous? Is it not dangerous?
(30:45):
So the biggest example is you'rewalking in the park and you see
what you think is a snake, andthen you realize it's a stick,
and then you keep walking. Is ita stick or is it a snake? Your
body is constantly checking fordanger, but it's not it's it's
thinking about it logically. Ifit is a snake, then your
reptilian brain will take play.And I'm actually touching the
base of my the base of where myneck and my head touch.
(31:07):
That's kind of the base of thethe brain stem. That's the
reptilian brain, and that willwhen you see the snake and it is
a snake, you're gonna yelp andthen you're gonna run without
thinking. And it makes for somevery hilarious videos. Right?
You've seen lots of people jumpup when they're frightened, and
then off they go.
And it's hilarious because we'reseeing we're seeing them
unfiltered. We're seeing themfrom the reptilian brain. Well,
(31:28):
the beauty of the routine isthat it is also very close to
that part of the brain. It'sonce you get a routine going,
it's normal. I mean, I can I cansee the two of you are
absolutely beautiful women?
It looks like you do your hairevery day, you know, and you
have a little bit of makeup andyou've got you know, you're
youthful and and and joy. Youlook like you're put together.
(31:50):
Well, when you the first dayThank you.
Merry (31:53):
Yeah. Thank you.
Elizabeth Bruckner (31:55):
I saw I saw Instagram videos of you too, and
I was like, I've gotta make surethat my hair looks nice today
because these girls these girlshave style.
Merry (32:02):
I've gotta I've gotta step it up.
Cathy (32:03):
You're so cute.
Elizabeth Bruckner (32:04):
But, but we have to we have a routine.
Right? So you're not you're notactively thinking, like, I need
to get my bangs to go to theside and how do I do that?
Because you know how to do thatnow. When I wake up
Merry (32:16):
So you say.
Elizabeth Bruckner (32:18):
That's true. We all have some stumbling
blocks.
Merry (32:20):
When I have a cow
Elizabeth Bruckner (32:21):
lick, forget it. There's this note. There's
just no getting it done. But alot, like, even when we drive to
work. Right?
We don't think about where wedon't think about, oh, I made a
left turn, and then I made aright turn, and then made a left
turn. Our routine is there. Wealready know how to do that. And
so when we are creating ahomesteader mindset and we're
creating traditional skills, wewant to create routines so that
(32:41):
there is no thought patterns onit. And some of the ways to do
that is to connect habits.
For example, when you brush yourteeth, I'm going to I'm going to
look up, you know, five minutesof, YouTube videos on how to
grow rose rosemary in my garden.And so I'm brushing my teeth and
I'm looking at maybe I wouldhave watched some celebrity
(33:02):
gossip, but instead I'm brushingmy teeth and I'm connecting that
habit to doing something that'sreally easy but productive.
That's habit stacking. And inthat way, you can create these
routines that are alreadyhappening on routines that you
already have. You could be asmoker.
I don't want anyone to be asmoker. But if you have a habit
of smoking, it's a very regularroutine typically. People go out
(33:23):
for their, you know, noon breakand their 04:00 break. Well, you
can habit stack. You can addanother habit that is good for
you onto that habit.
And then eventually, you canthink about not not smoking
again, but eventually, you willhave another routine that's
positive and that's productive.
Merry (33:39):
Yeah. That's yeah.
Cathy (33:40):
That's Wow. That's a good plan.
Merry (33:42):
Absolutely. That's great advice. What are the three big
myths that stifle positiveliving and positive thinking,
and how do we kick them to thecurb? Is that by habit stacking?
Elizabeth Bruckner (33:55):
Yes. Habit stacking has a lot to do with
that. I love talking about thethree big myths. There are
actually three chapters in mybook. The first is I don't have
enough time, I don't have enoughmoney, and positive change is
too complicated.
Merry (34:08):
Mhmm.
Elizabeth Bruckner (34:09):
And you will hear that all the time in any
type of accomplishment thatpeople have tried. So for
instance, Kathy, you have youhave like this incredible
Instagram and you have a youhave a a background in TV and
films. Right? So I'm sure thatevery time you mention your
background in TV and films,people will say, oh, I've always
(34:31):
wanted to do that. I've alwayslike, I hear that a lot when it
comes to language learning andwhen it comes to homes.
Oh, I've always wanted to dothat, but I just don't have
time. I'll do it when the kidsare grown or but I just don't
have money. I don't have moneyto, you know, to get headshots
or whatever you need to do tobecome that or it's too
complicated. You do this, but Icould never do that. That's not
true.
We can all do. If we have a astrong desire or strong
(34:54):
fulfillment, it's absolutelypossible. And so when it comes
to I don't have time, we talkeda little bit about that. You're
utilizing found time. You'recreating habit stacks and habit
chains.
Habit chains is a littledifferent than habit stacks,
which is you take a habit thatyou already have and you chain
something right after it. Forexample, when I wash my dishes,
(35:14):
right after I wash my dishes,I'm gonna put my shoes on and go
for a walk. I'm gonna put myshoes on and I'm gonna go for a
walk, and that's the habitchain. I have the shoes out. I'm
ready.
And so now it's just automatic.It's not, I wash my dishes and I
think about I should probably doit in an hour or two hours and
then it never happens. A habitchain.
Merry (35:31):
Now
Elizabeth Bruckner (35:32):
when it talks about not having enough
money, this is a reallyimportant topic because I think
it affects a lot of people inour in our modern society.
They're working hard, butthey're still not making ends
meet. How on earth could theystart homesteading? Well, I will
tell you that homesteading cansave you money. Some of the ways
is knowing how to upcycle.
For example, I make I makecleaning cleaning solution with
(35:56):
homemade vinegar. So I takefruit scraps. I throw it in some
water with some sugar. I let Istir it once a day. And in
thirty days, I have vinegar.
And then I take that vinegar. Idilute it with water. I put a
few essential oils in it. Andnow I have what in the grocery
store I would pay, you know, 8to $9 per bottle. I now have
five or six bottles from thathalf gallon of of vinegar.
(36:18):
That's Is
Merry (36:18):
that recipe in your book?
Elizabeth Bruckner (36:20):
It's not, but I should put it in the next
book because I think it's reallyimportant.
Merry (36:23):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Bruckner (36:24):
It's fairly easy to make. There is a woman
on YouTube. Her her mess hervideos are not edited, so
they're a little lengthy. It'scalled Rain Country Homestead,
and she will tell you how to dofruit scrap vinegar. But I think
I'd like to I'd like to put thatin the next book.
Yeah. Fruit scrap vinegar. Andit's just it smells great. I do
(36:46):
it with, like, lemon and teatree to kill bacteria, and then
it's I mean, it cleans yourwhole house, that and baking
soda. And now I've savedhundreds of dollars on cleaning,
and I've reduced the toxic loadin my home.
Another thing that you canconsider if you live in the
urban area, or suburban area is,one man's trash is another man's
treasure. So I'm sure we've allwalked by a fruit tree in bloom,
(37:09):
and you see fruit rotting at thebottom of it because that poor
person they might not be poor,but that poor person that has a
home, they just they're workingevery day and they just don't
have time to pick the orangesoff that tree. Well, if you
knock on that door and say,listen, I would love to harvest
your fruit, and I say, I'll takea third. I'll give you a third,
and then we'll donate a third tocharity. What do you say?
(37:30):
I will bet you nine times out of10 that person will be so happy
to get the rotten fruit or thepotential for rotten fruit and
just feeling bad every time youdrive by it in your driveway.
They will be happy to share itwith you. Another thing you
could do is sharing land. So ifyou're in an urban area
specifically, a lot of peoplesay, you know, they just have
apartments with absolutely nono, yard. You can find little
(37:51):
plots in the urban area thatlook a little deserted, and I'm
talking about just the plot nearin front of the the front door,
not like an empty lot.
And go knock on that door andsay, look, I'd love to grow
some, herbs, and I would love touse your your land to do it, and
let's let's split it fiftyfifty. That's now you're not
looking for a community pot.You're not, you know, applying
(38:12):
for a community garden andtrying to get in. You're just
finding someone and and reverseengineering finding land. And
then lastly, propagation, whichis one of my favorites for
saving money, is there's a lotof plants that if you clip off a
branch of them and stick it inwater, it will grow it will grow
roots, and then you can plantit.
So no seeds required. You don'thave to go to the garden store.
I have been known to take a bowland some scissors and knock on
(38:35):
my neighbor's doors and say,hey, do you have any plants that
I can propagate? And then oftenwe share. We share a lot.
I have probably about 20 plantsin my yard that were from
propagation.
Merry (38:45):
Like what? Give us some examples.
Elizabeth Bruckner (38:48):
Tomato plants. You can cut a tomato
plant and you can actually takea tomato plant. If they grow in
your region, you can just stickthe the the branch in in the
ground and it'll start growing.I really like to see the roots.
So typically in my bathroom,there's a nice sunny windowsill
and I'll put it in there.
Mint can grow that way. Let mesee if there's anything else
(39:09):
that would be fun.
Merry (39:11):
Rosemary?
Elizabeth Bruckner (39:12):
Rosemary. I don't know. I've not tried
rosemary because my rosemarybushes have been so they're
they're so prolific that Ihaven't done that. But I have
Cathy (39:20):
Rosemary grows so gigantic all by itself.
Merry (39:23):
It does.
Cathy (39:23):
You know? It does.
Elizabeth Bruckner (39:24):
It really does.
Merry (39:24):
It takes over everything. It does. You gotta eat a lot
Cathy (39:27):
of massive. I have a massive one.
Elizabeth Bruckner (39:30):
Do you? Yeah. I love rosemary. So those
are a few, but you would besurprised. And I would say if
you're not sure, clip it off,put it in water, and see.
You don't even have to look itup. Just see what is it what
does it hurt? Now lastly,positive change is too
complicated is the third one.And this, I think, is the crux
of my success as a homesteaderand in much of life is that I
(39:50):
keep it really simple. So I Ifind out what I wanna do.
I try to center it arounddelight and joy because before,
like, I'm in my fifties now, butbefore in my before my forties,
everything was a chore. Even thefun stuff. Like, vacation was a
checklist. I have to do this. Ihave to do that.
And it was not fun. Like, Iwasn't having any fun. And then
(40:12):
I started learning that when youdo things for pleasure, your
brain actually wants to do moreof it, and you become more
successful. And so keeping itreally simple, and the there's a
process to that, which is in thebook, and also looking for
moments of joy will make you abetter wife, mother, business
owner, employee, communitymember. If you're happy, you're
(40:32):
gonna be more productive.
You're gonna be way better, waymore fun to be around. You will
make better the world a betterplace if you focus on the light.
Cathy (40:41):
Well, talking about that, you also you share about using
play to establish homesteadhabits. So that sounds like what
you were just starting to touchon a little bit. Can you explain
that?
Elizabeth Bruckner (40:54):
Yes. I can. Choosing a life of delight makes
for a vibrant existence. And soI think a lot of times, people
don't know that that is thesecret to many people's success.
I don't wanna be a successfulperson, and I think a lot of
listeners will agree, and maybeyou two will agree as well.
I don't wanna be supersuccessful and miserable. I
(41:15):
mean, I know a lot of peoplethat have a lot of material
wealth or a lot of accolades oreven a long alphabet after their
name of, you know, PhDs and MDsand all these things and they're
not happy, I would take theperson with none of that that
has a, an authentic smile ontheir face. I would wanna know
what their secret is because itdoesn't matter. The truth is,
(41:36):
you know, when we when we passon, right, we're not gonna get
to have any of the material aswell. I'm not saying not to have
the material.
Have it, but have it and bedelighted with it. And so I
learned that learning forpleasure, it does a number of
things. It improves your mentalhealth. We just talked about
that. It's creating neuralpathways that are, comfortable
(41:57):
and fun and, attractive asopposed to when I was talking
about having the checklist and,you know, I gotta get I gotta
pack everything and it has to begood and it has to be perfect.
That's gonna create neuralpathways that have that light up
your pain receptors. So a lot ofpeople don't realize this, but
when you learn stuff, it'sactually painful when it's brand
new because it's new, you know,it's it's there's no there's no
(42:20):
trail train track. There's noneural pathway that's already
there. You gotta create it. It'skind of like taking a machete
and going through a jungle toget to what you need to get to.
So you wanna do it as you wannado it as gently as possible, and
you need to have pleasure to getto the treasure. If there is no
treasure I know that was Ididn't mean to rhyme, but there
you go. Now we have now we havea T shirt.
Merry (42:41):
It's a pleasure to
Elizabeth Bruckner (42:42):
get to treasure. Once you fill fill up
with delight, once you fill upyour self care cup, you are
going to be way more motivatedto use that little bit of
willpower that you have tocreate those routines, and then
your life will be inspiring toothers, which I would say I
mean, we could even look at whatyou two have done, Mary and
Kathy. You've created a podcast.Not everybody does that. And
(43:05):
you've created a podcast.
And like me, podcasts didn'texist when we were younger.
Like, there was know mean?
Cathy (43:10):
It's not
Elizabeth Bruckner (43:11):
like we know podcasts. There's a lot that
goes into it. There's sound.There's recording. There's
setting up guests.
There's figuring out what you'regonna ask and when you're gonna
ask it. There's so much to do.And if you don't have a little
bit of joy for doing it, I don'tknow that I know that many
people can't get past the thirdepisode because it's too
difficult. But if you havepleasure, if you have play, if
(43:32):
you pique your curiosity, whichI think is what having these
conversations are. Right?
You're using your curious yourcurious nature to it.
Cathy (43:39):
People like you.
Merry (43:40):
Joy in it. Yes. People like joy. Exactly.
Cathy (43:45):
Joy from people like you that come on and say
Merry (43:47):
Absolutely. Guys are doing a
Cathy (43:49):
great job.
Merry (43:50):
We we read each other's minds. I was about to say the
same thing. I have to ask you,though. You have a quote in your
book that says badly done isbetter than well said. Tell us
about that.
That's different.
Elizabeth Bruckner (44:05):
That is different, isn't it? Oh, yeah.
Well, it's a spin on BenFranklin's quote, which is well
done is better than well said.And I thought, well, that's
nice.
Cathy (44:13):
Mhmm.
Elizabeth Bruckner (44:14):
Except that doesn't work for perfectionists
because the perfectionist willnever get the podcast made. The
perfectionist first of all, youknow, during my twenties when I
really had a hard time with,self criticism, etcetera, I
wouldn't have even gone on apodcast. Like, to be recorded
and to fumble and to make amistake and maybe I say
(44:34):
something wrong. And nowadays,when you record something,
somebody's gonna listen to ittwenty years from now, and maybe
you weren't supposed to say theword blue and you said the word
blue. You know?
Like, it could be Yeah. You justYeah. There's a there's a lot of
there's a lot of anxiety thatcould be produced around that.
And so when I make bad beingstarting something and doing it
badly done as my battle cry,that is when I go, you know
(44:56):
what? It's gonna be messy.
I'm gonna make messy mud pies.I'm gonna be really cute with a
little bit of dirt on my nose.Like and people are gonna love
me because I am authentic, thenit doesn't matter if it's badly
done.
Merry (45:09):
Oh, that's great.
Elizabeth Bruckner (45:10):
Yeah. And so I would love to say to people,
make a really messy, terribleherb garden. Make an herb garden
where four out of five of yourplants die because you will
learn and then you will you willeventually create an herb garden
of your dreams.
Merry (45:25):
That's great. Yeah.
Cathy (45:27):
Wow. I love that. Yeah. And how did you manage to
harness a a homesteader mindsetwhile dealing with chronic
illness?
Elizabeth Bruckner (45:38):
Well, that's probably going to be another
book is stepping out of chronicillness. So in my forties, I
lost the decade of my forties toillness. I was bedbound for
weeks. I was homebound formonths, and I was, unable to
work for years. And when I wokeup, I was in my fifties, and I
was like, oh my gosh.
(45:59):
What happened? You know? Like,what happened? And this chronic
illness made it so debilitatingthat I remember saying to my
husband, like, I can't doanything. I can't I wasn't able
to think properly.
I had a it was a lot of gutissues that were causing
problems with my brain andcausing incredible weakness. I
couldn't walk for more than fiveminutes. It's not quite Wow. The
(46:20):
coming out of a coma like the,the man that wrote, the Goya the
Goya guy. I forget his name.
Merry (46:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Cathy (46:29):
Yeah. I don't know.
Elizabeth Bruckner (46:30):
You have
Merry (46:30):
so many you have so many Yes. Get off your ass.
Elizabeth Bruckner (46:34):
That's right. That's right. That's the
guy.
Cathy (46:36):
Oh, Goya. Get off your ass.
That's right. I I didn't know what
we were talking about, of course.
Elizabeth Bruckner (46:40):
Yeah. He's I mean, he had a very traumatic, a
traumatic injury. Mine happenedover the course of a long time
of being malnutritioned by noteating good food and just not
recognizing that I wasn't eatinggood food. And so what I learned
in terms of harnessing ahomesteader minus mindset during
my chronic illness was that Ihad to start from the bare
(47:03):
minimum. So originally, and Italk about this in the book, my
husband said, alright.
You need a to do list. Here'syour to do list. Eat, poop, and
sleep. If you do all of thatevery single day, you're a
success. And so I was like,okay.
Had something to focus on.
Merry (47:16):
That's pretty simple.
Elizabeth Bruckner (47:17):
It was super simple. And then eventually, was
like, well, what if I created,what if I created fermented
vegetables, which is gonnaincrease the it's like a 12% I'm
sorry. It's like 12 times thevitamin content of normal
vegetables when you fermentthem. And, here's a fun fact. A
teaspoon of sauerkraut has moreprobiotics in it than an entire
(47:37):
bottle of your $50 expensiveprobiotic formula that you buy
at the supermarket.
So making your own fermentationis pretty pretty remarkable. And
so it it that light lighted meup. That and learning languages
and just doing things forpleasure because I couldn't do
anything outside of that. Icouldn't be responsible for
anything aside eat, sleeping,pooping. When I started doing
(47:58):
that, that's when I learned thatI could harness even doing the
bare minimum.
And so for me, finding joy infermentation was was what I woke
up to. That's what I wanted todo every morning, And that's
what I wanna give to my
Merry (48:12):
readers in this instance. Fermenting like sauerkraut?
Elizabeth Bruckner (48:16):
That's correct. So sauerkraut is very
easy to do. You take some somecabbage, you put it in a food
processor, you sprinkle somesalt in it, you let it sit for a
day, and then you put it in ajar and you pack it down. It's
got a little bit of juice, thenyou let it sit. You can let it
sit for seven days.
You can let it sit for sevenmonths. And then when you eat
that that sauerkraut, there'sit's called lacto lacto
(48:37):
fermentation. So what you'redoing is you're the salt is
inhibiting the bad bacteria, thebacteria that's gonna make you
sick to your stomach or it'sgonna make you ill, and it's
allowing lactobacillicus, whichis a different kind of different
kind of bacteria that's good foryour gut, it's allowing it to
grow and flourish, and that'swhat changes the vegetable. It
(48:58):
actually digests the vegetable.Those little microbes are eating
that vegetable and making iteasier for you to digest it.
So when you have right now, havea seven month sauerkraut in my
fridge, and it is so mild inflavor and so easy to digest,
and yet it's my supplement thatI have when I want prebiotics
and probiotics.
Merry (49:15):
That's great.
Cathy (49:16):
Yeah. I wanna start
Merry (49:17):
Elizabeth, I have so many more questions that I could ask
you, but we're running out oftime, unfortunately. So what
would you like our listeners tohave as their main takeaway
today?
Elizabeth Bruckner (49:29):
Oh my goodness. I would say that it's
possible for anyone, anywhere tocreate a homesteader mindset, to
create a life of their dreams.And if you like the, just a
small little tiny explanation ofhow to create small habits and
then how to track them with ahabit tracker, you can get that
(49:51):
at my website, which iscreatewellnessproject.com/gift,gift.
And it's possible to have theworld the life of your dreams.
Even one one little five minutesnippet at a time, it is
possible.
Merry (50:07):
That's great. Love it. Thank you. That is I can't wait
to read your book. Thank you.
Our guest today on late boomershas been Elizabeth Bruckner,
homesteading expert and authorof the homesteader mindset.
Visit her website, as she said,createwellness.com or
createwellnessproject. Createwellness project Com. Thank you,
(50:31):
Kathy. Orcreatewellnessproject.com/gift,
and you get a free Homesteaderdaily habit tracker if you go to
that website and put your nameand all your information in it.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Bruckner (50:47):
Thank you both.
Cathy (50:47):
Thank you for listening to our Late Boomers podcast and
subscribing to our Late Boomerspodcast channel on YouTube.
Listen in next week when you'llmeet Chip Duncan and Salim Amin,
the two filmmakers who haveproduced a phenomenal
documentary called StandTogether as One, The Famine, The
Music, The Impact, all about thefamine in Ethiopia that led to
(51:12):
the music business efforts ofBand Aid, We Are The World and
Live Aid. You can listen on anypodcast platform and we do
appreciate you so much. Pleasefollow us on Instagram at I am
Kathy Worthington and at I amMary Elkins and at late boomers.
Thanks again to ElizabethBruckner.
Elizabeth Bruckner (51:31):
Thank you, ladies.
Cathy (51:43):
Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast
that is your guide to creating athird act with style, power, and
impact. Please visit our websiteand get in touch with us at
lateboomers.biz. If you wouldlike to listen to or download
other episodes of late boomers,go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry (52:04):
This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple
Podcast, and most other majorpodcast sites. We hope you make
use of the wisdom you've gainedhere and that you enjoy a
successful third act with yourown style, power, and impact.
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy (00:14):
Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating
your third act with style,power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy
Worthington.
Merry (00:24):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you
conversations withentrepreneurs, entertainers, and
people with vision who aremaking a difference in the
world.
Cathy (00:34):
Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the
ride on each interview,recounting the journey our
guests have taken to get wherethey are, inspiring you to
create your own path to success.Let's get started.
Hi there. I'm Cathy Worthington. Welcome to our
(00:55):
latest episode of late boomers.I'm here with my cohost, Mary
Elkins, and we are welcomingtoday a new guest, Elizabeth
Bruckner, the author of thebook, the Homesteader Mindset.
Merry (01:09):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Elizabeth is known as the
fermentation maven. She's anexpert on fermentation and
composting and an acupuncturistas well. Welcome, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Bruckner (01:23):
Thank you both for having me today.
Cathy (01:26):
Tell us about background. Tell us about your background
and how you discovered gardeningand composting and what led you
to being an expert inhomesteading.
Elizabeth Bruckner (01:37):
It's funny. I fell into homesteading and I
think I did homesteading beforeI knew what it was, which I
think a lot of your listenersmight be homesteaders and not
know it. Homesteading has manyspokes to the wheel. And so
during the pandemic, I actuallybecame aware of how fragile our
food system was, and it was a itwas a big culture shock because
(02:00):
I've grown up in a veryprosperous country. And I come
from a family of war refugeesfrom Belarus during World War
two.
And so I'd heard talks of nothaving food on the shelves, but
it always been stories. And Iactually visited the Russia
during the fall of the IronCurtain, and I remember seeing
(02:20):
empty shelves and going, wow.That's I'm so glad that doesn't
happen in America. And then thepandemic happened and our
shelves were empty. And Iattempted to get garlic and
ginger one day, and I was unableto get these two organic
produce.
The produce section was waspretty wiped out. And I remember
coming home to my husband andsaying, I'm really worried.
(02:42):
Like, this is concerning to me.This is this doesn't happen in
in our in our lives. And hesaid, well, maybe you should
consider growing some food inthe backyard.
I mean, we have we have a littlebit of space. I live in the
suburbs of Los Angeles. And Ikind of cocked my head to the
side and said, do you know me?Like, we've been married fifteen
(03:02):
something years. Are you awarethat I kill everything in the
backyard?
There's nothing that lives. So Iwould I was I was known for
going to the grocery store. I'msorry, the garden store and
saying, please can you give mesomething that won't die? And
then I would take it home, andin two weeks it would die, and
then I would go back. It wasthis vicious cycle.
It was like they they couldn'tbreak up with me. I just kept
(03:23):
coming back and funding theirbusiness because I didn't know
how to grow food. And so Istarted You're giving
Merry (03:29):
hope to people who actually have that experience.
Elizabeth Bruckner (03:32):
That's right. I mean, I did not have a
green thumb at all, or nor did Iknow how to cook. I was a career
woman, and I thought I thought,you know, here I was preaching
to my patients that you need toeat whole foods, you need to eat
good nutrient dense foods, but Ididn't know how to cook. So I I
outsourced a lot of my food. Ioutsourced the growing of it.
I outsourced the preparing ofit. And when the pandemic hit, I
(03:56):
thought, I don't know how to bean adult. Like, it's time for me
to step inside to my home andactually take charge of the
things that I can be that I canbe responsible for. And so
that's when I started doinggardening and also learning how
to cook. Like, I didn't know howto bake a chicken.
I didn't know what broccolilooked like when it was growing
(04:17):
out of the ground. I mean, I wasa beginner and I was in my
forties. And so that's when Istarted looking up how to do
this in Southern Californiabecause, you know, every every
region in The United States hasa different growing, like,
growing requirements anddifferent plants that grow
there. And so I wasn't going totry to grow something here that
couldn't be grown. And then Iwas looking on YouTube and
(04:39):
looking through podcasts, andeverybody kept bringing up
homesteading.
I'm like, what in the world isthat? And then I was like,
that's interesting.
Merry (04:46):
To you because I don't really know.
Elizabeth Bruckner (04:49):
Right. What is homesteading?
Merry (04:51):
Yes. Yeah. What is homesteading?
Elizabeth Bruckner (04:54):
I used to think initially that
homesteading was mom paw kettle,and they're out in the
wilderness like Little House OnThe Prairie, and they've you
know, they're shooting bears tokeep them off their land, and
they make their own clothes. Andthat was that's the initial that
was the original version ofhomesteading. So back in 1862,
(05:14):
the government started a seriesof homesteading acts, which
allowed the federal governmentto grant 270,000,000 acres of
land to private owners. Sadly, alot of that went to very, very
rich people and but there were afew mom pa kettles that got
their 40 acres and a mule. Sothat is what most people think
about when they think abouthomesteading.
(05:35):
But for those of you that arenot watching on YouTube, but
you're listening on anotherplace that you listen to
podcasts, you will notice that Idid not make my clothes, and I
have running water, and I livein the suburbs. And so the new
homesteading, the modernhomesteading is a practice of
cultivating resilience throughan intentional way of living.
(05:55):
And this involves reducing yourtoxic load, building your gut
microbiome with nutrient densefood, potentially growing edible
landscaping, and connecting moredeeply with your innate
resourcefulness. Because we allour bodies know how to heal.
That I learned when I startedtraining to be an acupuncturist.
And our homes can heal too if wejust spend a little bit of
(06:16):
intentional time in in thepractice of homesteading.
Cathy (06:19):
Wow. Oh, I love that.
Merry (06:21):
Yeah. I do too. So
Cathy (06:25):
what is a homesteader?
Elizabeth Bruckner (06:29):
So a homesteader could be a number of
things. I would challenge yourlisteners to see if as we talk
today, they have any ounce ofhomesteading in them. If you're
cooking from scratch, you couldbe a homesteader. Absolutely.
One of the things that I sayoften when people are asking me,
like, what should I do when I'mfirst starting to learn how to
cook?
Because a lot of people just wedon't know how. We're busy
(06:51):
working. Is just buy, if you'rea meat eater, buy a Vegetarian
chicken. Buy a chicken, learnhow to bake it, and then you've
got four different meals thatyou can make just from baked
chicken. You can have chickensoup.
You can have chicken salad. Youcan have chicken with, you know,
a side of of vegetables. Andthen you can make a meat stock,
(07:11):
like a chicken chicken broththat you can use for medicinally
for your gut. So that's one wayis cooking traditional foods,
stepping out of the fast foodline, stepping out of the box
food. A lot of people think thatand I especially did.
Like, a lot of what I'm sayingright now is coming from, years
of of wisdom from experimentingwith things that didn't work
(07:32):
well for me. And one of thosethings is I thought that buying,
like, organic happy lookingboxes of food was healthy. And,
again, I was outsourcing andpeople were doing a lot of seed
oils in their food, in thepackaged foods. There was a lot
of preservatives. Even though itsaid organic, it wasn't healthy
for me.
Merry (07:51):
Right.
Elizabeth Bruckner (07:51):
And so when you make it yourself, you know
what you're getting. Anotherthing is growing edible
landscaping. So that could meangoing to the grocery store if
you live in an apartment, buyingjust a a little pot of basil and
clipping basil as you're cookingor putting throwing some basil
in water and just letting itbecome an herbal infusion. Now
(08:11):
I'm lucky enough to have a avery tiny, suburban plot, which
is a backyard filled withcement, but there's a little
planter around the cement, whichis around a pool. And so I can
grow food there, but for thosein an apartment, you can
actually grow food on yourwindowsill, you can use lighting
to do it.
There's a lot of ways that youcan do it in any place that
(08:32):
you're living with any type ofbody as well. So let's say you
have terrible back pain asidefrom getting acupuncture or
doing something to help withyour chronic pain, you can also,
you can also find ways to gardenand to cook while dealing with
back pain.
Merry (08:48):
Interesting.
Cathy (08:49):
That's great. Is there and also is there a link between
mental health and homesteading?
Elizabeth Bruckner (08:55):
Oh, that's a great question, Kathy. Thank
you. Yes. I I would say that,especially for Americans, I'm
not gonna speak for every personworldwide, but for Americans, we
have a chronic disease ofdepression and anxiety. And a
lot of that has to do with we'reliving in a fast paced world and
there's not a lot of room forhealth.
If you want to live a healthylife, you kind of have to step
(09:19):
off the treadmill and make spacefor it. And so what I often say,
and this is from a wise friendof mine that told me once, so
it's not something I created. Itis, the prescription for anxiety
is action, and
Cathy (09:34):
the
Elizabeth Bruckner (09:34):
prescription for hopelessness is gratitude.
And so if someone's feelingdepressed and hopeless and they
just don't think that they canthey can make it, I recommend,
walking around your house, andthis is from an author named
Honore Quarter. I recommendwalking around your house,
touching the things that youhave, and actually feeling
gratitude for them. So everymorning when I wake up, I will
(09:57):
lay in bed and go, oh my gosh.I'm so grateful for this warm
bed, for running water, forheat, for air conditioning,
whatever the gifts are that Ihave that I see at that moment.
And that really helps withmental health. Another thing
that homesteading does in termsof helping with mental health is
you're taking action because youare becoming more responsible
for your food, for your health,for your well-being, for your
(10:18):
community, for your family. Andthey there's a study that says,
folks that have habits that are,using their hands are happier.
So people that use their handsare actually happier. And
homesteading is all about usingyour hands.
You're growing. You're you'recreating. You're building in
some cases, and you're alsocooking and you're fermenting.
(10:40):
You're doing all sorts ofwonderful things. And there is a
there is a groundedness thatoccurs.
I believe for me, because I wasso allergic to the kitchen up
until my forties. I just Ididn't wanted nothing to do with
it. And then when I startedmaking food and sitting down, I
realized that there's like amindful practice that occurs
when you are making food foryour body. It's like you're set
(11:03):
you're going, okay. You're I'mI'm worth this.
I'm worth real food. And thenwhen I sit down with my husband,
he is a huge foodie, and so weused to do only great
restaurants. But now when I makefood, his pupils of his eyes get
heart shaped.
Merry (11:16):
So he's like
Elizabeth Bruckner (11:17):
he gets so excited because he can feel the
love. It's it's crazy.
Merry (11:21):
If you if you get really close, you can feel the heart's
good for relationships too.
Elizabeth Bruckner (11:25):
It is. It's nerdy. Yeah. It's really very
sweet.
Merry (11:30):
Yeah. I love that. I love that. That's great. Tell me
something.
What made you decide to author abook called The Homesteader
Mindset?
Elizabeth Bruckner (11:42):
You know, there's a number of reasons,
Mary. Thank you for asking thequestion. I would say the the
foremost in my mind is I am avery enthusiastic teacher of
what I learn. So when I waslearning languages, every time a
friend would ask me how I'mdoing, I would explain to them
how I'm creating habits to learnlanguages. And this has been
(12:04):
throughout my life.
I've been a mentor for manyyears for folks that, need other
type of spiritual practices. I,now that I'm homesteading, a lot
of my friends would be like, whyyou know, what's happening? Your
skin looks better. You have lesspain. You're happier.
I accidentally lost weightbecause I was eating really good
(12:25):
food. And so I'm always teachingthem, well, if you make kefir
cream in your it's kinda likesour cream. It's like a yogurt
kefir. It's really pronouncedkefir, but I can never remember
to say kefir. So kefir becausethat's what we say in America.
If you can make that, it's verysimple, then you can create
incredible benefits in your gut,which then helps your brain. So
(12:46):
what I recognize is when I eatwell, I feel well, and people
wanna know about it. And as apractitioner in the clinic and
in my online traditional Chinesemedicine sessions, a lot of,
folks want to heal their bodies.They know that their bodies are
capable of healing, but they'renot quite sure of the steps. And
so I really wanted to create abook that would teach you how to
(13:09):
take what seems impossible andmake it possible with really
simple, tiny, almost, it almostdoesn't seem like it would be
enough.
Like, I talk about starting witha five minute a day habit, and
then we just talk about changingthe mindset. You could actually
take the Homesteader Mindsetbook, and you could take that
(13:29):
book and translate it intoanything that you wanna do. I
wanna start to learn how tosing. And then you could take
the steps that I've created. Andthose steps are just about
creating routine because routineis everlasting.
Whereas willpower, like, I'mgonna get up and I'm gonna learn
how to sing or I'm gonna get upand I'm gonna learn how to how
to raise chickens. That is veryfinite. You will run out of it
(13:49):
quite quickly.
Merry (13:50):
Yeah. Mhmm. Making making looking at the most difficult
thing to do and thinking, I'lldo that now. I'll start with
that.
Cathy (13:58):
Yes. Well, are there things in the book like, how to
ferment and and how to makekefir? Are those in the book?
Elizabeth Bruckner (14:07):
Yes. There's a lot of information about how
to firstly find where to to getthese things. Because what I
realized is that with this book,because there's so many spokes,
there's so many things thatpeople might be interested. For
example, lots of homesteaderslove to make sourdough bread. I
do not.
I don't eat sourdough bread. Myhusband does, and we have a
baker at the farmer's marketthat makes exquisite forty eight
(14:28):
hour fermented sourdough. So I'mnever going to learn how to make
sourdough unless I have to. Ihave no desire. And there are,
as I said, many spokes of thewheel.
So there are hundreds of thingsthat people could want to learn.
What I help people do there area few things where I'm actually
saying here's a really easyrecipe or here's one thing that
you can do. But I took threedifferent families in urban
(14:48):
setting, suburban setting, and arural setting, and I showed the
listener I'm sorry, the readerthrough the stories how they
found the things that theyneeded to find. For example, if
they wanted to know kefir, youcould go to the back and see if
I wrote anything on Kiefer, butyou could also go to a, I have a
bonus a book bonus, which you'llboth see when you get the book.
(15:10):
I have a book bonus that givesyou links for everything that
I've learned so you can pick andchoose what you like.
And then also, how do you learnthese things? Because for me,
you know, I'm a little youngerthan a boomer, and I just wanna
say hat tip to the name. Lateboomers is adorable. And it's so
important that we have a voicefor our our wise elders. It's so
(15:33):
important.
And I just am I'm enthralledthat you you two are doing this
and that you have a really goodname. So what I recommend is for
me, I didn't know this is goingback ten years. I didn't know
that YouTube had something otherthan cat videos and makeup
tutorials. Like, I thoughtthat's all it was. I didn't so I
(15:53):
had no interest in going thereever because it didn't I had not
I didn't want a cat video.
Sometimes I do now, but I didn'twant any cat videos. I didn't
want any any makeup tutorials.And then I recognize that you
can learn anything. It's likehaving it's like having a wise
elder in your family online thatyou can go to. How do I change
the the faucet in my bathroom?
(16:13):
That's a version ofhomesteading, being resilient.
Right? How do I do composting?You can just type it in and
there it is. And it's veryvisual.
It's really good for visuallearners. So for me, I had to I
wanted to step back. For thoseof for those that are my,
parents' age that are my parentsare in their eighties, They're
not quite savvy with, YouTube.So I wanted to teach them how to
(16:35):
find what they're looking for.So if someone is has arthritic,
hands and they want a garden,they can actually go online and
and look up how to how to gardenwith arthritic hands.
And there will be tools that areavailable and and methods that
are available. On top of that,I, you know, I eventually will
do in a course on chronic painbecause I think that we need to
get people out of pain as well.
Merry (16:57):
Have you taught your your parents, to homestead a bit? Are
they out gardening? Is this intheir interest?
Elizabeth Bruckner (17:05):
Oh, my sweet parents. They're they are my mom
is this five foot two, spitfireof a woman, and my dad is
probably six two. And, you know,he has, he has a lot of
difficulties with long termdiabetes and and chronic
illness, but they are stilldoing things outside. So they
started raising goats before Iwas homesteading. And I remember
(17:27):
going, ma, dad, this this soundcrazy.
Why do you why are you raisinggoats? So they owe it but they
did it to, create brush. Theylive in a very rural area, so
they did it to clean out thebrush. So they actually had they
were raising lawnmowers,basically. And now they rent out
those lawnmowers to other peoplethat need to do forestry, like
forest cleaning.
And so they I think they startedhomesteading before I started
(17:51):
homesteading.
Merry (17:52):
Wow. Mhmm. Interesting. Oh, yeah. Do you I have another
question for you.
Yeah. Where do you have where doyou buy your food for cooking
healthfully? And have youchanged those habits from going
to say one type of market toanother?
Elizabeth Bruckner (18:10):
That's a very good question. Thank you,
Mary. And I I wanna say thatwhat I'm gonna say now is the
end result of years ofexperimentation. So I started by
going to, you know, the everydaygrocery store and buying I just
the first thing I started doingwas reading the labels on the
(18:30):
foods that I was buying. And ifthey had things that I couldn't
pronounce, I wouldn't buy it.
Mhmm. If I found pasta and theone pasta said, you know, wheat
and flour and the other one saidwheat flour and, you know, all
these other very big words thatsound very fancy, I would not
buy that one. And then I startedgoing to farmer's markets
(18:50):
because we're lucky enough inSouthern California to have
round round the year farmersmarkets. It's warm enough to do
that always. And so my husbandand I, this was probably, I
would say, ten years ago, Westarted voting with our dollars,
which was we really wanted tosupport local farmers.
We wanted to know who wastouching our food. We wanted to
(19:11):
get rid of the middleman. Wewanted to get away from big
food, big pharma, big ag. Andthe way that we could do that
was going to farmer's markets.So now Mhmm.
When I go to the farmer'smarket, I'm, you know, well
known because I I can say hello,Sarah, to the woman that, you
know, makes that raises mycarrots and brings them to the
farmer's market. And when therewas an egg scare, there was no
(19:33):
egg scare with my farmersbecause they were not gigantic
farms that were having issues.They were tiny farms that were
having issues. So right now, Iwould say 90% of my food is from
farmer's market, a nearbyfarmer's market. The other 10%,
like, it's difficult to getdairy.
I know of a I know of someonethat has dairy cows, but I'm not
(19:55):
willing to drive an hour. So Iwill go to a just a one step up.
It's a it's it's locally locallyowned grocery stores that have
milk that are from farms withinCalifornia. So I'll do that. And
then I also really like, there'san online there's two online
places where you can get foodthat is relatively inexpensive
(20:17):
that has a health bend to it.
I do I do say though, after Isay these two names that you do
need to still look at theingredients because they have
lots of stuff that isn't thathealthy. So one is
thrivemarket.com, and the otheris Azure Standard. I really like
Azure Standard. That'sazurestandard.com. I really like
Azure Standard because a lot ofit comes from their farm.
(20:41):
So and they source from fairtrade. They source from, people
that are taking good care oftheir animals and their crops.
So you're getting happy foodthere. And so when I need
something like coconut oil, Iwill order it from Azure
Standard.
Merry (20:55):
Ah, it's different there. It's the coconut oil is
different there versus themarket?
Elizabeth Bruckner (21:01):
Well, it's what it's doing is it's a number
of things. Number one, it'ssupporting that farm that farmer
because that particular farm isnot a big, gigantic, huge
corporation. And so a lot oftimes with grocery stores, we
have the farmers and then wehave the middleman, the sellers,
and then we have the farmer'smarket. I mean, then we have the
(21:23):
grocery store. And what'shappening is you're paying
everyone there.
And what I like to do is takeout the grocery store middleman,
take out the buyer middleman,and just pay the farmer so that
it supports more sustainablefarming. It supports more fair
trade, and the money's goingdirectly in the pocket of the
farmer.
Cathy (21:40):
That's great.
Elizabeth Bruckner (21:41):
Yeah. I started slow, though. I started
with just going to the grocerystore, just looking at labels.
Then then I would just on, youknow, nice days when I felt like
it, would go to the farmer'smarket in my fancy little, you
know, sundress. And and now it'sa it's something that I do every
weekend.
Like, that is that is my myshopping is I go to the farmer's
market.
Cathy (22:00):
That's great. And you talk about the three things that
turn a homesteader mindset intoa reality. So what are the three
things?
Elizabeth Bruckner (22:11):
Those three things are simple and again, you
can translate this into any typeof mindset that you want. The
first is pick a corner. Thesecond is immerse yourself in
found time. And the third ismake home studying a priority.
So let's talk a little bit aboutthese three things.
Picking a corner. What does thatmean? What I often recommend
that the listener or in the caseof my readers that are reading
(22:33):
the book, I recommend sittingdown for ten minutes and
daydreaming. What does ahomesteading what does
homesteading look like to me?What would be my ideal
homesteading adventure?
And so as we're listening tothis and somebody's going, oh,
you know, she doesn't wanna makesourdough,
Merry (22:49):
but I would love to put on
Elizabeth Bruckner (22:51):
an apron and make sourdough and share it on
Instagram with the pretty littleleaf, you know, one of the
little leaf patterns that peopleput on their bread. Like, that's
not my thing, but that might besomeone else's. And so sit, grab
a nice warm beverage, like a cupof tea or herbal infusion, sit
down and just think what wouldfeel incredible? What would my
wildest dreams look like interms of homesteading? And then
(23:12):
when you're looking at that andthat happens a lot like, Kathy,
you were talking about arelative that's moving soon into
a new home.
Like, they can sit down and go,what what is this house gonna
bring me? What do I want? Whatdo I envision in it? And maybe
that person will envision a herbgarden in the backyard, and
that's what they wanna talkabout and think about. And just
what, like, lights them up.
Or for me, my next step is Iwould love to get chickens in my
(23:35):
backyard. I would love to feedmy chickens the, you know, my
vegetable scraps because we havea lot of them and then have
these beautiful eggs that I canthat I can bring into the house.
I would love that. And so if Iwere, daydreaming about that, I
would think, okay, the firstthing that I want like, let's go
back to the the relative thathas a new home. They want this
herb garden.
(23:55):
The first thing I would think isjust what does an herb what will
an herb garden bring me? Ugh.Well, in the morning, I'll go
outside and I will snip off someparsley to put on the side of my
plate with my eggs in themorning, or I'll I'll use
rosemary in my chicken, and I'mgonna have rosemary, you know,
and I can just snip out. It's sogreat to go grocery shopping in
your backyard. It is so muchfun.
(24:17):
And then as you're looking atthat daydream, then you've
decided to pick a corner. Mycorner is I'm going to make a
small five herb herb garden.That is my corner. So now once
we found that corner, that's mydream of my home setting. It's
the corner of the homesteadingdream that feels really, really
good.
Then I'm going to immerseimmerse myself in found time. So
(24:38):
a lot of people talk about deadtime in language learning. Use
dead time to learn languages. Ireally don't like the term dead.
It just doesn't seem fun.
Like, who wants to use deadtime? So I use found time. And
found time happens whenever youare whenever you find yourself
looking for distraction,whenever you're grabbing for
(24:59):
distraction, you might beanytime that you're picking up
the cell phone and you're notexpecting a call and you're not
expecting a text, but you'repicking it up and you start
scrolling, that's found time.That's the five minutes that
turns into two hours. I mean,we've all been there.
Right? We've decided to go onfor five minutes. Next thing you
know, it's dark outside. Like,how did that happen? That is
found time.
And what you can do is you canharness that found time. And you
(25:22):
can do it by saying, forexample, let's say you really
like social media media. That'swhat you're into, and that's
what you grab for. You can makean account solely on
homesteading, and that accountcan be all about herb gardens.
What what does it look like inPinterest?
What are the most beautiful herbgardens? And then when you're
pulling for out that phone fordistraction, you're learning as
well. Oh, I didn't know thatit's really easy to grow mint in
(25:45):
shade. I had no idea. Have a lotof shade in my backyard.
And then that five minutes isnow five minutes that you're
using. The next thing that youdo in terms of immersing
yourself and found time iscreating habits around that. And
my book talks a lot about it,and at the end of the at the end
of our conversation, I'll makesure to offer a free gift for
habit stacking, habit stackingtrap tracker. And then the last
(26:09):
thing that we talk about, thethree, is making it a priority.
And this, I think, is reallyhard in our day and age because
we do have priorities.
Our priorities are make surethat there's a roof over our
head and that our children arefed and that we're you know? And
then if you go even a littlefarther, are we taking care of
ourselves by brushing our teethevery day? Are we eating well?
Are we moving our body? All ofthose very important things are
(26:31):
priorities, but sometimes theybecome overwhelming.
And if we just take one priorityand say, this is a priority for
joy. I'm gonna do this solelyfor joy, not for fear, not even
for preparation, just to ignitesome delight in my life, and you
make homesteading your prioritythere and you do five minutes a
day, you will wake up moreinvigorated every morning. So if
(26:53):
you wake up and you're like, ohmy gosh, today's the day I'm
gonna I'm gonna learn about howwhere I should plant my mint.
And then the next day, you'relike, okay. Now I'm gonna plan
how to get to the garden store.
And then there's another fiveminutes. Again, it's five minute
increments. Five minutes ofgoing to the garden store, can I
please have mint and bring ithome? Five minutes of planting
it. Every single every singleaction that you take towards
that priority, towards that thatvision of delight will then give
(27:16):
you the same wonder that you hadwhen you were five years old.
I mean, do you guys rememberwaking up waking up at five and
being excited? Right?
Merry (27:25):
Yeah. I love that. Talking about your book a little
bit, I and I think you justanswered the question that I had
for you as who would benefitfrom reading it. And do you even
have to well, do you have to bea homesteader to to read it? And
I think you answered.
Elizabeth Bruckner (27:43):
I think this is a a good question to focus on
because a lot of people will go,oh, well, no. Because I'm busy
or I'm a I'm a you know, I havea PhD in in microbiology, so I
shouldn't be getting my handsdirty. And that obviously isn't
for me. I would say that if youwant fulfillment, one of the
most important things is to getyour hands dirty, whether it's,
you know, making something inthe kitchen or creating
(28:05):
fermentation or playing withyour kids out in the in the
grass with bare feet or gettingyour hands dirty in the compost
pile or in the garden. Anyonecan be a homesteader regardless
of where you live, regardless ofyour age, and most importantly,
of your socioeconomic status.
Because I think that sometimespeople think, well, you know,
(28:25):
that's for bougie people thatare going, you know, like, oh,
you have to have a yard in orderto do this or you have to have
and that's not the case. AndI've actually talked about a few
ways that you can save money,and you can homesteading can
actually be something that'sreally good when you're doing it
on a budget.
Merry (28:43):
Oh,
Cathy (28:44):
yeah. Well, you talked a little bit about this, but tell
us a little bit more about whywillpower isn't enough to create
a life of traditional skills andwhat to add to that.
Elizabeth Bruckner (29:00):
Yes. I it's I think this is another one
that's really important torepeat because a lot of times
people think that, well, if I'mif I just had enough willpower,
I would be healthier or I wouldhave a better life. And yes,
willpower does have something todo with it. I think willpower is
really good for the first thirtyseconds of a habit, but
(29:23):
willpower is finite. So therehave been some studies done.
There's a great book called ThePower of Habits by Charles Duig,
and in it, there's a ton of,research on the brain. And one
of the studies showed that ifsomeone had to do a hard math
puzzle that they didn't like,and then they had to use
(29:43):
willpower like they had to thethe researchers said, okay, you
can have this cookie, but I needyou to wait as long as you can
before you have this cookie.Those that had to do the really
difficult math puzzle, so theyhad to concentrate, they had to
use their willpower to do that.When it came time to eat the
cookie, they ate it much fasterthan the others. Then the
control group was just, can youwait?
Just wait as long as you canbefore you eat this cookie. And
(30:05):
they were able to wait muchlonger because they hadn't
exhausted their willpower withsomething else. So willpower
yeah. Yeah. Willpower is finite.
I know it's that finite. It'sthat finite. And it and it does,
of course, it does regenerate.Like, every day is a new day,
but routine is everlasting. Sothere's a part of your brain
that's and many people havetalked about that.
(30:25):
We've got the prefrontal cortex,and for those of you that aren't
watching on video, I'm touchingmy forehead. The prefrontal
cortex is something that kind ofdifferentiates us from reptiles
and from from, animals thatdon't quite they don't raise
their young, so they don't havea lot of binding. And the
prefrontal cortex is all about,should I, shouldn't I? Is this
dangerous? Is it not dangerous?
(30:45):
So the biggest example is you'rewalking in the park and you see
what you think is a snake, andthen you realize it's a stick,
and then you keep walking. Is ita stick or is it a snake? Your
body is constantly checking fordanger, but it's not it's it's
thinking about it logically. Ifit is a snake, then your
reptilian brain will take play.And I'm actually touching the
base of my the base of where myneck and my head touch.
(31:07):
That's kind of the base of thethe brain stem. That's the
reptilian brain, and that willwhen you see the snake and it is
a snake, you're gonna yelp andthen you're gonna run without
thinking. And it makes for somevery hilarious videos. Right?
You've seen lots of people jumpup when they're frightened, and
then off they go.
And it's hilarious because we'reseeing we're seeing them
unfiltered. We're seeing themfrom the reptilian brain. Well,
(31:28):
the beauty of the routine isthat it is also very close to
that part of the brain. It'sonce you get a routine going,
it's normal. I mean, I can I cansee the two of you are
absolutely beautiful women?
It looks like you do your hairevery day, you know, and you
have a little bit of makeup andyou've got you know, you're
youthful and and and joy. Youlook like you're put together.
(31:50):
Well, when you the first dayThank you.
Merry (31:53):
Yeah. Thank you.
Elizabeth Bruckner (31:55):
I saw I saw Instagram videos of you too, and
I was like, I've gotta make surethat my hair looks nice today
because these girls these girlshave style.
Merry (32:02):
I've gotta I've gotta step it up.
Cathy (32:03):
You're so cute.
Elizabeth Bruckner (32:04):
But, but we have to we have a routine.
Right? So you're not you're notactively thinking, like, I need
to get my bangs to go to theside and how do I do that?
Because you know how to do thatnow. When I wake up
Merry (32:16):
So you say.
Elizabeth Bruckner (32:18):
That's true. We all have some stumbling
blocks.
Merry (32:20):
When I have a cow
Elizabeth Bruckner (32:21):
lick, forget it. There's this note. There's
just no getting it done. But alot, like, even when we drive to
work. Right?
We don't think about where wedon't think about, oh, I made a
left turn, and then I made aright turn, and then made a left
turn. Our routine is there. Wealready know how to do that. And
so when we are creating ahomesteader mindset and we're
creating traditional skills, wewant to create routines so that
(32:41):
there is no thought patterns onit. And some of the ways to do
that is to connect habits.
For example, when you brush yourteeth, I'm going to I'm going to
look up, you know, five minutesof, YouTube videos on how to
grow rose rosemary in my garden.And so I'm brushing my teeth and
I'm looking at maybe I wouldhave watched some celebrity
(33:02):
gossip, but instead I'm brushingmy teeth and I'm connecting that
habit to doing something that'sreally easy but productive.
That's habit stacking. And inthat way, you can create these
routines that are alreadyhappening on routines that you
already have. You could be asmoker.
I don't want anyone to be asmoker. But if you have a habit
of smoking, it's a very regularroutine typically. People go out
(33:23):
for their, you know, noon breakand their 04:00 break. Well, you
can habit stack. You can addanother habit that is good for
you onto that habit.
And then eventually, you canthink about not not smoking
again, but eventually, you willhave another routine that's
positive and that's productive.
Merry (33:39):
Yeah. That's yeah.
Cathy (33:40):
That's Wow. That's a good plan.
Merry (33:42):
Absolutely. That's great advice. What are the three big
myths that stifle positiveliving and positive thinking,
and how do we kick them to thecurb? Is that by habit stacking?
Elizabeth Bruckner (33:55):
Yes. Habit stacking has a lot to do with
that. I love talking about thethree big myths. There are
actually three chapters in mybook. The first is I don't have
enough time, I don't have enoughmoney, and positive change is
too complicated.
Merry (34:08):
Mhmm.
Elizabeth Bruckner (34:09):
And you will hear that all the time in any
type of accomplishment thatpeople have tried. So for
instance, Kathy, you have youhave like this incredible
Instagram and you have a youhave a a background in TV and
films. Right? So I'm sure thatevery time you mention your
background in TV and films,people will say, oh, I've always
(34:31):
wanted to do that. I've alwayslike, I hear that a lot when it
comes to language learning andwhen it comes to homes.
Oh, I've always wanted to dothat, but I just don't have
time. I'll do it when the kidsare grown or but I just don't
have money. I don't have moneyto, you know, to get headshots
or whatever you need to do tobecome that or it's too
complicated. You do this, but Icould never do that. That's not
true.
We can all do. If we have a astrong desire or strong
(34:54):
fulfillment, it's absolutelypossible. And so when it comes
to I don't have time, we talkeda little bit about that. You're
utilizing found time. You'recreating habit stacks and habit
chains.
Habit chains is a littledifferent than habit stacks,
which is you take a habit thatyou already have and you chain
something right after it. Forexample, when I wash my dishes,
(35:14):
right after I wash my dishes,I'm gonna put my shoes on and go
for a walk. I'm gonna put myshoes on and I'm gonna go for a
walk, and that's the habitchain. I have the shoes out. I'm
ready.
And so now it's just automatic.It's not, I wash my dishes and I
think about I should probably doit in an hour or two hours and
then it never happens. A habitchain.
Merry (35:31):
Now
Elizabeth Bruckner (35:32):
when it talks about not having enough
money, this is a reallyimportant topic because I think
it affects a lot of people inour in our modern society.
They're working hard, butthey're still not making ends
meet. How on earth could theystart homesteading? Well, I will
tell you that homesteading cansave you money. Some of the ways
is knowing how to upcycle.
For example, I make I makecleaning cleaning solution with
(35:56):
homemade vinegar. So I takefruit scraps. I throw it in some
water with some sugar. I let Istir it once a day. And in
thirty days, I have vinegar.
And then I take that vinegar. Idilute it with water. I put a
few essential oils in it. Andnow I have what in the grocery
store I would pay, you know, 8to $9 per bottle. I now have
five or six bottles from thathalf gallon of of vinegar.
(36:18):
That's Is
Merry (36:18):
that recipe in your book?
Elizabeth Bruckner (36:20):
It's not, but I should put it in the next
book because I think it's reallyimportant.
Merry (36:23):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Bruckner (36:24):
It's fairly easy to make. There is a woman
on YouTube. Her her mess hervideos are not edited, so
they're a little lengthy. It'scalled Rain Country Homestead,
and she will tell you how to dofruit scrap vinegar. But I think
I'd like to I'd like to put thatin the next book.
Yeah. Fruit scrap vinegar. Andit's just it smells great. I do
(36:46):
it with, like, lemon and teatree to kill bacteria, and then
it's I mean, it cleans yourwhole house, that and baking
soda. And now I've savedhundreds of dollars on cleaning,
and I've reduced the toxic loadin my home.
Another thing that you canconsider if you live in the
urban area, or suburban area is,one man's trash is another man's
treasure. So I'm sure we've allwalked by a fruit tree in bloom,
(37:09):
and you see fruit rotting at thebottom of it because that poor
person they might not be poor,but that poor person that has a
home, they just they're workingevery day and they just don't
have time to pick the orangesoff that tree. Well, if you
knock on that door and say,listen, I would love to harvest
your fruit, and I say, I'll takea third. I'll give you a third,
and then we'll donate a third tocharity. What do you say?
(37:30):
I will bet you nine times out of10 that person will be so happy
to get the rotten fruit or thepotential for rotten fruit and
just feeling bad every time youdrive by it in your driveway.
They will be happy to share itwith you. Another thing you
could do is sharing land. So ifyou're in an urban area
specifically, a lot of peoplesay, you know, they just have
apartments with absolutely nono, yard. You can find little
(37:51):
plots in the urban area thatlook a little deserted, and I'm
talking about just the plot nearin front of the the front door,
not like an empty lot.
And go knock on that door andsay, look, I'd love to grow
some, herbs, and I would love touse your your land to do it, and
let's let's split it fiftyfifty. That's now you're not
looking for a community pot.You're not, you know, applying
(38:12):
for a community garden andtrying to get in. You're just
finding someone and and reverseengineering finding land. And
then lastly, propagation, whichis one of my favorites for
saving money, is there's a lotof plants that if you clip off a
branch of them and stick it inwater, it will grow it will grow
roots, and then you can plantit.
So no seeds required. You don'thave to go to the garden store.
I have been known to take a bowland some scissors and knock on
(38:35):
my neighbor's doors and say,hey, do you have any plants that
I can propagate? And then oftenwe share. We share a lot.
I have probably about 20 plantsin my yard that were from
propagation.
Merry (38:45):
Like what? Give us some examples.
Elizabeth Bruckner (38:48):
Tomato plants. You can cut a tomato
plant and you can actually takea tomato plant. If they grow in
your region, you can just stickthe the the branch in in the
ground and it'll start growing.I really like to see the roots.
So typically in my bathroom,there's a nice sunny windowsill
and I'll put it in there.
Mint can grow that way. Let mesee if there's anything else
(39:09):
that would be fun.
Merry (39:11):
Rosemary?
Elizabeth Bruckner (39:12):
Rosemary. I don't know. I've not tried
rosemary because my rosemarybushes have been so they're
they're so prolific that Ihaven't done that. But I have
Cathy (39:20):
Rosemary grows so gigantic all by itself.
Merry (39:23):
It does.
Cathy (39:23):
You know? It does.
Elizabeth Bruckner (39:24):
It really does.
Merry (39:24):
It takes over everything. It does. You gotta eat a lot
Cathy (39:27):
of massive. I have a massive one.
Elizabeth Bruckner (39:30):
Do you? Yeah. I love rosemary. So those
are a few, but you would besurprised. And I would say if
you're not sure, clip it off,put it in water, and see.
You don't even have to look itup. Just see what is it what
does it hurt? Now lastly,positive change is too
complicated is the third one.And this, I think, is the crux
of my success as a homesteaderand in much of life is that I
(39:50):
keep it really simple. So I Ifind out what I wanna do.
I try to center it arounddelight and joy because before,
like, I'm in my fifties now, butbefore in my before my forties,
everything was a chore. Even thefun stuff. Like, vacation was a
checklist. I have to do this. Ihave to do that.
And it was not fun. Like, Iwasn't having any fun. And then
(40:12):
I started learning that when youdo things for pleasure, your
brain actually wants to do moreof it, and you become more
successful. And so keeping itreally simple, and the there's a
process to that, which is in thebook, and also looking for
moments of joy will make you abetter wife, mother, business
owner, employee, communitymember. If you're happy, you're
(40:32):
gonna be more productive.
You're gonna be way better, waymore fun to be around. You will
make better the world a betterplace if you focus on the light.
Cathy (40:41):
Well, talking about that, you also you share about using
play to establish homesteadhabits. So that sounds like what
you were just starting to touchon a little bit. Can you explain
that?
Elizabeth Bruckner (40:54):
Yes. I can. Choosing a life of delight makes
for a vibrant existence. And soI think a lot of times, people
don't know that that is thesecret to many people's success.
I don't wanna be a successfulperson, and I think a lot of
listeners will agree, and maybeyou two will agree as well.
I don't wanna be supersuccessful and miserable. I
(41:15):
mean, I know a lot of peoplethat have a lot of material
wealth or a lot of accolades oreven a long alphabet after their
name of, you know, PhDs and MDsand all these things and they're
not happy, I would take theperson with none of that that
has a, an authentic smile ontheir face. I would wanna know
what their secret is because itdoesn't matter. The truth is,
(41:36):
you know, when we when we passon, right, we're not gonna get
to have any of the material aswell. I'm not saying not to have
the material.
Have it, but have it and bedelighted with it. And so I
learned that learning forpleasure, it does a number of
things. It improves your mentalhealth. We just talked about
that. It's creating neuralpathways that are, comfortable
(41:57):
and fun and, attractive asopposed to when I was talking
about having the checklist and,you know, I gotta get I gotta
pack everything and it has to begood and it has to be perfect.
That's gonna create neuralpathways that have that light up
your pain receptors. So a lot ofpeople don't realize this, but
when you learn stuff, it'sactually painful when it's brand
new because it's new, you know,it's it's there's no there's no
(42:20):
trail train track. There's noneural pathway that's already
there. You gotta create it. It'skind of like taking a machete
and going through a jungle toget to what you need to get to.
So you wanna do it as you wannado it as gently as possible, and
you need to have pleasure to getto the treasure. If there is no
treasure I know that was Ididn't mean to rhyme, but there
you go. Now we have now we havea T shirt.
Merry (42:41):
It's a pleasure to
Elizabeth Bruckner (42:42):
get to treasure. Once you fill fill up
with delight, once you fill upyour self care cup, you are
going to be way more motivatedto use that little bit of
willpower that you have tocreate those routines, and then
your life will be inspiring toothers, which I would say I
mean, we could even look at whatyou two have done, Mary and
Kathy. You've created a podcast.Not everybody does that. And
(43:05):
you've created a podcast.
And like me, podcasts didn'texist when we were younger.
Like, there was know mean?
Cathy (43:10):
It's not
Elizabeth Bruckner (43:11):
like we know podcasts. There's a lot that
goes into it. There's sound.There's recording. There's
setting up guests.
There's figuring out what you'regonna ask and when you're gonna
ask it. There's so much to do.And if you don't have a little
bit of joy for doing it, I don'tknow that I know that many
people can't get past the thirdepisode because it's too
difficult. But if you havepleasure, if you have play, if
(43:32):
you pique your curiosity, whichI think is what having these
conversations are. Right?
You're using your curious yourcurious nature to it.
Cathy (43:39):
People like you.
Merry (43:40):
Joy in it. Yes. People like joy. Exactly.
Cathy (43:45):
Joy from people like you that come on and say
Merry (43:47):
Absolutely. Guys are doing a
Cathy (43:49):
great job.
Merry (43:50):
We we read each other's minds. I was about to say the
same thing. I have to ask you,though. You have a quote in your
book that says badly done isbetter than well said. Tell us
about that.
That's different.
Elizabeth Bruckner (44:05):
That is different, isn't it? Oh, yeah.
Well, it's a spin on BenFranklin's quote, which is well
done is better than well said.And I thought, well, that's
nice.
Cathy (44:13):
Mhmm.
Elizabeth Bruckner (44:14):
Except that doesn't work for perfectionists
because the perfectionist willnever get the podcast made. The
perfectionist first of all, youknow, during my twenties when I
really had a hard time with,self criticism, etcetera, I
wouldn't have even gone on apodcast. Like, to be recorded
and to fumble and to make amistake and maybe I say
(44:34):
something wrong. And nowadays,when you record something,
somebody's gonna listen to ittwenty years from now, and maybe
you weren't supposed to say theword blue and you said the word
blue. You know?
Like, it could be Yeah. You justYeah. There's a there's a lot of
there's a lot of anxiety thatcould be produced around that.
And so when I make bad beingstarting something and doing it
badly done as my battle cry,that is when I go, you know
(44:56):
what? It's gonna be messy.
I'm gonna make messy mud pies.I'm gonna be really cute with a
little bit of dirt on my nose.Like and people are gonna love
me because I am authentic, thenit doesn't matter if it's badly
done.
Merry (45:09):
Oh, that's great.
Elizabeth Bruckner (45:10):
Yeah. And so I would love to say to people,
make a really messy, terribleherb garden. Make an herb garden
where four out of five of yourplants die because you will
learn and then you will you willeventually create an herb garden
of your dreams.
Merry (45:25):
That's great. Yeah.
Cathy (45:27):
Wow. I love that. Yeah. And how did you manage to
harness a a homesteader mindsetwhile dealing with chronic
illness?
Elizabeth Bruckner (45:38):
Well, that's probably going to be another
book is stepping out of chronicillness. So in my forties, I
lost the decade of my forties toillness. I was bedbound for
weeks. I was homebound formonths, and I was, unable to
work for years. And when I wokeup, I was in my fifties, and I
was like, oh my gosh.
(45:59):
What happened? You know? Like,what happened? And this chronic
illness made it so debilitatingthat I remember saying to my
husband, like, I can't doanything. I can't I wasn't able
to think properly.
I had a it was a lot of gutissues that were causing
problems with my brain andcausing incredible weakness. I
couldn't walk for more than fiveminutes. It's not quite Wow. The
(46:20):
coming out of a coma like the,the man that wrote, the Goya the
Goya guy. I forget his name.
Merry (46:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Cathy (46:29):
Yeah. I don't know.
Elizabeth Bruckner (46:30):
You have
Merry (46:30):
so many you have so many Yes. Get off your ass.
Elizabeth Bruckner (46:34):
That's right. That's right. That's the
guy.
Cathy (46:36):
Oh, Goya. Get off your ass.
That's right. I I didn't know what
we were talking about, of course.
Elizabeth Bruckner (46:40):
Yeah. He's I mean, he had a very traumatic, a
traumatic injury. Mine happenedover the course of a long time
of being malnutritioned by noteating good food and just not
recognizing that I wasn't eatinggood food. And so what I learned
in terms of harnessing ahomesteader minus mindset during
my chronic illness was that Ihad to start from the bare
(47:03):
minimum. So originally, and Italk about this in the book, my
husband said, alright.
You need a to do list. Here'syour to do list. Eat, poop, and
sleep. If you do all of thatevery single day, you're a
success. And so I was like,okay.
Had something to focus on.
Merry (47:16):
That's pretty simple.
Elizabeth Bruckner (47:17):
It was super simple. And then eventually, was
like, well, what if I created,what if I created fermented
vegetables, which is gonnaincrease the it's like a 12% I'm
sorry. It's like 12 times thevitamin content of normal
vegetables when you fermentthem. And, here's a fun fact. A
teaspoon of sauerkraut has moreprobiotics in it than an entire
(47:37):
bottle of your $50 expensiveprobiotic formula that you buy
at the supermarket.
So making your own fermentationis pretty pretty remarkable. And
so it it that light lighted meup. That and learning languages
and just doing things forpleasure because I couldn't do
anything outside of that. Icouldn't be responsible for
anything aside eat, sleeping,pooping. When I started doing
(47:58):
that, that's when I learned thatI could harness even doing the
bare minimum.
And so for me, finding joy infermentation was was what I woke
up to. That's what I wanted todo every morning, And that's
what I wanna give to my
Merry (48:12):
readers in this instance. Fermenting like sauerkraut?
Elizabeth Bruckner (48:16):
That's correct. So sauerkraut is very
easy to do. You take some somecabbage, you put it in a food
processor, you sprinkle somesalt in it, you let it sit for a
day, and then you put it in ajar and you pack it down. It's
got a little bit of juice, thenyou let it sit. You can let it
sit for seven days.
You can let it sit for sevenmonths. And then when you eat
that that sauerkraut, there'sit's called lacto lacto
(48:37):
fermentation. So what you'redoing is you're the salt is
inhibiting the bad bacteria, thebacteria that's gonna make you
sick to your stomach or it'sgonna make you ill, and it's
allowing lactobacillicus, whichis a different kind of different
kind of bacteria that's good foryour gut, it's allowing it to
grow and flourish, and that'swhat changes the vegetable. It
(48:58):
actually digests the vegetable.Those little microbes are eating
that vegetable and making iteasier for you to digest it.
So when you have right now, havea seven month sauerkraut in my
fridge, and it is so mild inflavor and so easy to digest,
and yet it's my supplement thatI have when I want prebiotics
and probiotics.
Merry (49:15):
That's great.
Cathy (49:16):
Yeah. I wanna start
Merry (49:17):
Elizabeth, I have so many more questions that I could ask
you, but we're running out oftime, unfortunately. So what
would you like our listeners tohave as their main takeaway
today?
Elizabeth Bruckner (49:29):
Oh my goodness. I would say that it's
possible for anyone, anywhere tocreate a homesteader mindset, to
create a life of their dreams.And if you like the, just a
small little tiny explanation ofhow to create small habits and
then how to track them with ahabit tracker, you can get that
(49:51):
at my website, which iscreatewellnessproject.com/gift,gift.
And it's possible to have theworld the life of your dreams.
Even one one little five minutesnippet at a time, it is
possible.
Merry (50:07):
That's great. Love it. Thank you. That is I can't wait
to read your book. Thank you.
Our guest today on late boomershas been Elizabeth Bruckner,
homesteading expert and authorof the homesteader mindset.
Visit her website, as she said,createwellness.com or
createwellnessproject. Createwellness project Com. Thank you,
(50:31):
Kathy. Orcreatewellnessproject.com/gift,
and you get a free Homesteaderdaily habit tracker if you go to
that website and put your nameand all your information in it.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Bruckner (50:47):
Thank you both.
Cathy (50:47):
Thank you for listening to our Late Boomers podcast and
subscribing to our Late Boomerspodcast channel on YouTube.
Listen in next week when you'llmeet Chip Duncan and Salim Amin,
the two filmmakers who haveproduced a phenomenal
documentary called StandTogether as One, The Famine, The
Music, The Impact, all about thefamine in Ethiopia that led to
(51:12):
the music business efforts ofBand Aid, We Are The World and
Live Aid. You can listen on anypodcast platform and we do
appreciate you so much. Pleasefollow us on Instagram at I am
Kathy Worthington and at I amMary Elkins and at late boomers.
Thanks again to ElizabethBruckner.
Elizabeth Bruckner (51:31):
Thank you, ladies.
Cathy (51:43):
Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast
that is your guide to creating athird act with style, power, and
impact. Please visit our websiteand get in touch with us at
lateboomers.biz. If you wouldlike to listen to or download
other episodes of late boomers,go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry (52:04):
This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple
Podcast, and most other majorpodcast sites. We hope you make
use of the wisdom you've gainedhere and that you enjoy a
successful third act with yourown style, power, and impact.
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