Discover the Practical Application of Ecology and Natural Resources

Do you want a homestead without the expense? Do you want your homestead to be less work each year? Pay close attention.

This is possible when you design with ecology and respect for natural resources. Working makes starting a homestead with less money easier.

The application of this knowledge is the true demonstration of its value. Don't watch another video without doing the exercise in this episode.

To be good stewards of land brings much more than cultivating, controlling, or developing. Do you understand hydrology? What about the solar aspect?

Without study, it's hard to bridge the topic of ecology with what typical landowners experience. Too many new homesteaders designed by brute force.

Many will build a homestead without considering solar aspects, forest composition, or water usage. They spend more, require extra materials, and are unhappy with their new life.

When you understand how nature works, it's easier to reconnect with abundance. You'll discover practices that improve the value of your land.

Homesteads and small farms can lead the way in regenerative practices. Are you ready to take up this charge?

In today's episode, I mention taking a survival course to understand the power of nature better. You'll learn how working with nature gets nature working for you.

Want a crash course on ecology and human interactions? I recommend the "Survival Essentials Workshop" with Scott Vernon at https://www.sustainablehomestead.com/ecommerce/december-27-31-survival-standard.html

No matter how you do it, working with nature saves you time and improves your success.

There are a lot of hard ways to homestead. For those who want food security and abundance, join us at https://www.prosperityhomestead.org/newsletter/

#StartHomestead #EcologicalDesign #PermacultureDesign #RegenerativeFarming #regenerativeagriculture

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prosperity-homestead--3659183/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
It's the practical application of ecology andnatural resources which create abundance on your homestead.
When you know how to work withnature, you're more likely to get
the results that you're looking for,which means less effort, more outputs,
greater food security, even greater physicalsecurity. Let's talk about this. I'm
just in hit with prosperity homestead.So the concepts of ecology and natural resources

(00:29):
are going to be there, whetheror not you know how to manage your
farm, whether or not you knowwhere to place your homestead, no matter
what you're doing. When it comesto getting started with your home set.
In fact, if you want tostart a homestead with no money, you
can grab a pad of paper andstart with your homestead design. Now there's
practical applications of what you're doing inyour current location wherever you live, of

(00:51):
how you do housekeeping, how youdo your pantry, how you manage the
shopping. Those elements you can startpracticing right away. But when it comes
to does designing your homestead, thatdream farm, that lifestyle experience, the
design plan is the most practical andeasiest application of skill. So you're watching

(01:12):
a bunch of YouTube videos, you'relistening to a bunch of podcasts. Let's
draw your property. So you're gonnahave a house, and in the permoculture
design aspect, you're gonna have azone one. That's the zone immediately around
your house. Have you ever consideredin which direction your house should face.
Well, if you're in the northernhemisphere, facing your house south gives you

(01:33):
solar aspect that allows you to usethe sun's energy to warm your home and
to even cool your home in thesummer, so you'll be warmer in the
winter because as the sun has alower aspect, you'll allow it to shine
into your house more. That influencesthe windows design. And if this in
the summer, the sun is higher, it's gonna have shade. That design

(01:55):
that the dictates some of the rooflayout. So your typical builder is not
going to know these things. Andvery often by living on the land first,
you'll better understand these things because ultimatelyyour elevation matters when it comes to
solar aspect of solar angle. Sowhat we want to do first is you
want to start looking at the ecologyor concepts of ecology, concepts of permaculture,

(02:23):
the concepts of how the natural resourceson land works. So did you
know if a house is on thetop of a hill, you're more likely
to get hot air coming up duringthe summer, and the cool air that
could have been around your house isgoing to go down in a way,
and then in the winter you're goingto get more wind. And so that
position on the top of a hill, while it's scenic and it's beautiful and

(02:44):
it's kind of got this epic viewthat impresses your friends, is actually not
very energy efficient and requires more energyinputs in the property itself. Now,
ecology tells us that rocky land willrespond differently than clay soil. Ecology tells
us what kinds of plants typically growin that area. So you're not trying
to grow citrus in the mid Atlanticarea or apples in a tropical area.

(03:09):
These elements working together are not withinthe typical landowner's experience. Most of the
folks that subscribe to our newsletter,who are a part of our coaching programs
and such, they have an ideafor a land use. Before they have
an idea for the land. Thesymbiotic relationship you're forming with that land.

(03:30):
Now, I don't mean to betoo abstract, but if you're gonna hunt
on that land. Don't you wantthe biggest, healthiest bucks. Don't you
want turkeys that mate and multiply everyyear and good vantage points you can get
a clear shot. Don't you wantthe best bow hunting, whether it's bear
or other things. And I knowyou may not be in the hunting,
but a lot of our subscribers areinto hunting. But even if you only

(03:53):
hunt with a camera, wouldn't youlike to know that that land is providing
for the wildlife that you so muchenjoy. Now let's say you're gonna have
small livestock. Wouldn't you like toknow that you're putting your fences in the
right place so that that livestock iscontained and so that the cost of the
fence doesn't become an additional expense overtime. And what does that mean?

(04:15):
Well, that means running fences oncontour lines, making sure your fences are
not at the top of the hillor the bottom of the hill, but
maybe through the center of the hillon a ridge line or on a contour,
or maybe you don't divide the fieldsup. You know, you may
use temporary fencing. Every property willbe different. But again, the application

(04:38):
of these principles is the true demonstrationof their value. And you can start
on paper first. Now, whenyou start on paper, you're going to
use a map of the area,but you can build your homestead, your
zone one on paper before you evenown a piece of property. You can
just simply get out a piece ofpaper and look through some housing ideas and

(04:59):
then start thinking about the solar aspect. And so you want your house to
face south, not necessarily because insome elevations you might want your house to
face slightly west or slightly east.You may want to have a beautiful front
porch, but if it's facing southand you've got sun on it all day,
you may want to have a moreshallow, deeper porch then you might

(05:20):
have in a traditional home. See, there's all these different aspects. And
when we fall in love with thedesign without considering the ecology, without considering
how nature works, we very oftenget what we want, but we're disappointed
with it or we have additional workin labor. Now I'm not saying there
will be zero labor if you mindthe hydrology, for example, but you're

(05:43):
less likely to have a basement thatleaks if you've got your house placed and
the water management, and you're lesslikely to have erosion and you're more likely
to have clear running streams and springswhen you understand hydrology. When it comes
to the ecology that we talked aboutof soil, if you want a house
with a basement, maybe you wanta nice root seller, you need to

(06:03):
be in soil that allows for that, or you're going to have additional costs
when it comes to preparing that jobsite. So again, there is a
bridge between the topic of ecology tothe typical landowners experience that we have to
build and for a lot of folks. And then this is why we have

(06:25):
the coaching programs, this is whywe recommend the Mastermind calls and we have
you get on calls with experts.Is because typically many of the people who
are moving out of the city,who are moving from the suburbs into a
rural area, they haven't been tothe rural area since they were kids.
They haven't lived and own land atall in many cases, and I've even

(06:46):
seen some folks make the mistakes ofbuying seventy or one hundred acres and not
having the capabilities and skills to managethat land properly. Now If you've got
one hundred acres of hunting land andyou're good at hunting, you want to
be studying habitat management. If you'vegot a one hundred acres of farmland and
you are you know, you're newto farming, you want to be studying

(07:06):
the history of that land and thensome methodology for managing that the animals on
that land. If you are justsimply buying land to conserve it, then
it's critical to start doing animal surveysso you can start understanding what habitat already
exists. We have to resist ourindividual desire to transform the land into what

(07:30):
we want and instead work symbiotically withhelping the land express what it wants.
You will not overcome the fact thatcold air moves downhill, and so if
you build your house in a valley, as beautiful as it may be,
you're going to face even colder weatherthan you would up on the hills.
There's so many aspects of this,and this is why we recommend taking a

(07:53):
basic survival class, and this iswhy we recommend investing in the knowledge of
either a master nature program in theregion in which you want to build your
homestead, or investing in a permaculturedesign program if you want to just broad
knowledge. But what we have todo to get the very best from the
land is we have to have aplan, and that plan considers solar aspect,

(08:18):
forest composition, water usage, climatein zone. So you could be
in zone seven but have a climateit's more like zone nine or more like
zone three. And we need tohave these things put together on paper because
again you have the least amount ofrisk. You can be an apartment in
New York City with trains and busesall around you disturbing your sleep and still

(08:41):
get out a piece of paper anddraw a diagram about your dream property.
Now from there we can start figuringout costs and location. And you know,
once we found a location, wecan get solar aspect, we can
start looking at what existing infrastructure isthere, and we can actually make this
happen. And if you try,I hope to show a video about goats
and their ability to reduce fire risk. If you're in an area that has

(09:05):
fire risk, there's many things youcan do and how you manage the land
that reduces fire risk. But alsoin that zone one, there's many designs
that reduces fire risk for the homeitself and how your home is designed.
There's ways of putting trees in toreduce the amount of incoming winds. Maybe
you get a piece of property andthere's only one place to put a house
and it's not the most ideal place. What would you do in order to

(09:28):
make it a more ideal place.Now, remember, when we're working with
nature and we're working with the ecologyof an environment, We're able to reduce
energy costs. We're able to improvethe durability of our structures. We're able
to have a more enjoyable life,like, for example, having a garden
that actually grows on its own ratherthan have to force it to grow with
all kinds of inputs. We lowerour costs because you won't need to get

(09:52):
greenhouses and all this extra equipment.Maybe even wouldn't need to get a tractor
because again, we can form ourmanagement as we work with nature. Now,
the ideal way again to get intouch with nature is to go out
there and just go primitive is togo to a survival school, take a

(10:13):
little weekend class, go out therein camp, go out there and hike,
just be involved in nature and understandthat what you're seeing, especially when
you're on a trail, what you'reseeing is not necessarily nature itself. It
could be somewhat curated, but it'sbetter than nothing because when you get out
on the land, you can avoida lot of the common mistakes. Now,

(10:33):
I've redesigned houses, so we dodesign plans for clients, and I've
redesigned houses or at least the footprintof where a house will be several times
based on the outcomes that the clientwants to have. But I've always got
to ask, what is the ecologyof the land. Ecology is the systems

(10:54):
of nature that are working in acertain space. And so do you have
an aquatic you know, if you'reon the shore, is an aquatic ecology?
Is it a marshland? Is ita savannah? Is it a forest?
Is it something else? Now,some of what we talk about we
will actually transition an ecology. Sofor example, at the urban homestead site

(11:20):
that we're consolidating out of, weturned it from a forest system that was
very aged out. The trees arefalling over into a Virginia savannah grasslands,
and we did that for some veryimportant reasons. At one of the sites
that I'm managing, we're actually goingto change a scrub forest into a Virginia
savannah grasslands. Now, why didwe choose Virginia savannah grasslands. Well,

(11:45):
that's because the ecology of the areato support quail, to support small birds,
deer, fox, bear, turkey, all those things, the savannah
grassland is most optimal for the resand the climate that we're in. However,
just right down the road, there'sland that's being transitioned from hayfields into

(12:07):
forests, and there's other lands thatare transitioning from forest to hayfields. And
even on a single piece of property, you might have microclimates and adaptation climates
in areas that you're adjusting according toyour need, but always working with nature.
So the ecology of nature is veryimportant to understand, especially if you're

(12:30):
gonna work with nature in order tomove towards your homestead dream. One of
the interesting things about this we geta lot of questions about food forests,
We get a lot of questions aboutregentitive agriculture, small livestock. When you
understand the ecology of an area,for example, if there's a bunch of
deer, then you can have goats. If there's a bunch of wild pigs,

(12:52):
you don't necessarily want domesticated pigs.If there's elk and large animals,
you don't necessarily want smaller animals inyour area. There are these concepts and
matches that we can answer for.But again, if you're starting on paper,
it doesn't matter what you write down. You don't have animals to feed,
you don't have buildings to build.If it's on paper, that design

(13:16):
plan tends to become the shortcut tosomething that is going to be symbiotic with
the piece of land that you choose. It's gonna seem like magically coming together.
And I really mean that. Alot of times people will come back
and they'll say, look, weplan it this thing, and it's almost
like once we planted it, wedon't have to do anything. And it's

(13:37):
really just a manner of just harvestingand harvesting because it grows like crazy.
These plants do so well here andthen they say, well, we're going
to expand it to the other sideof the property. And I say,
well, it's a different climate onthe other side of the property, it's
a different ecology, and they said, no, no, no, this
is doing so good on this pieceof land. We're going to do it
on the other side of property.And then it's a constant struggle. Again,

(14:00):
trees and plants, even wildlife movesto the greatest abundance and it moves
to where they're going to have thebest and most ideal environment for their growth.
And so when when you understand theecology and you have these design plans
and you have these tests, andmaybe it's a little more scientific approach,
a little more systematic approach, thingswill just work very well, not any

(14:22):
benefit to you other than you observenature, worked with nature, and did
the implementation in a systematic approach.I'm justin hit with prosperity homestead. I
hope you'll take out a sheet ofpaper and just start just start outlining and
brainstorming about your homestead. It iscloser than you can imagine to have land

(14:46):
of your own, to have ahomestead lifestyle of your own that's kind of
a slower pace, more enjoyable.And then we can help you avoid a
lot of the common mistakes that peoplemake. And again I'm helping you and
I really love to help you havemore of a symbiotic relationshipship with nature where
you're a good steward of the land, because I know that land will reward

(15:07):
you hundreds of thousands of times overfor doing what is right for that land
and then ultimately provide you food security, physical security, provides you an opportunity
to have a lifestyle that many onlydream of, and then ultimately provide for
generations of memories, generations of family, generations of just abundance. Thanks for

(15:31):
listening. I'm justin hit with ProsperityHomestead. Please ask your questions at www
dot prosperity homestead dot org and I'llsee in the next podcast.