Imagine trading the buzz of power tools for the scratch of a pen, or exchanging a bustling cityscape for the tranquility of the Australian countryside. This transformation is not a work of fiction but the true story of Amanda Perris, our guest on the show. A former female wall and ceiling fixer, Amanda has redefined her life's canvas, becoming the Case Study Queen in the world of copywriting, and embracing the homesteader's dream. Her journey unfolds as a testament to the resilience and adaptability of women in trades, and the allure of a quieter life.
Amanda isn't alone in her quest for a simpler, more sustainable way of life. Together, we unpack the profound realisation that comes from growing our own food and the impact this has on our understanding of the environment and our health.
The narrative shifts as we recount the discovery of a 100-acre homestead, an expansive canvas for the future. The peaceful life Amanda has carved out, balancing online work with the rhythms of rural living, serves as a beacon for those yearning to escape the chains of debt and reconnect with the land.
But Amanda's story is just the beginning.
Through her YouTube channel, Rockpile Off Grid Homestead, and the thriving Australian Homesteaders Community on Facebook, she's part of a broader movement. With over 13,000 members, our discussion celebrates the growth of a community that embodies diversity and resilience – a community that shows us homesteading isn't confined to the outback, but can bloom in a suburban backyard.
Our episode is an ode to community sufficiency, the strength found in shared knowledge and resources, and the joy of a life led by the values of simplicity and self-reliance.
Imagine trading the buzz of power tools for the scratch of a pen, or exchanging a bustling cityscape for the tranquility of the Australian countryside. This transformation is not a work of fiction but the true story of Amanda Perris, our guest on the show. A former female wall and ceiling fixer, Amanda has redefined her life's canvas, becoming the Case Study Queen in the world of copywriting, and embracing the homesteader's dream. Her journey unfolds as a testament to the resilience and adaptability of women in trades, and the allure of a quieter life.
Amanda isn't alone in her quest for a simpler, more sustainable way of life. Together, we unpack the profound realisation that comes from growing our own food and the impact this has on our understanding of the environment and our health.
The narrative shifts as we recount the discovery of a 100-acre homestead, an expansive canvas for the future. The peaceful life Amanda has carved out, balancing online work with the rhythms of rural living, serves as a beacon for those yearning to escape the chains of debt and reconnect with the land.
But Amanda's story is just the beginning.
Through her YouTube channel, Rockpile Off Grid Homestead, and the thriving Australian Homesteaders Community on Facebook, she's part of a broader movement. With over 13,000 members, our discussion celebrates the growth of a community that embodies diversity and resilience – a community that shows us homesteading isn't confined to the outback, but can bloom in a suburban backyard.
Our episode is an ode to community sufficiency, the strength found in shared knowledge and resources, and the joy of a life led by the values of simplicity and self-reliance.
Hello, hello, it's Nadine and I'm here with this week's episode of Life, Health and the Universe, and today I'm joined by my guest, amanda Perris. Hello Amanda, hello Nadine, how are you Good? Thanks for joining me. I'm very well, thank you, and I trust you're well too. Yes, all good here, good good. So thank you for joining me, amanda, as is the normal thing to do I guess I was going to say tradition, but it's kind of like of course, I'm going to introduce you, I'm going to do a little intro of you and then hand over to you and then we're going to get stuck into our conversation. Okay, so I'm just going to keep it super top level.
Speaker 1:Amanda Perris, copywriter with a business called a Case Study Queen I think it's the business name, right? Yeah, so, role and your business name. You've been a photographer. You are the owner of a homestead in Western Australia. You have a YouTube channel based on your move and your experiences on your homestead. Rockpile Off Grid Homestead is your YouTube channel, and you've also founded recently, in the last 12 to 18 months of booming Facebook group, a Facebook community called Australian Homesteaders Community. So that's kind of like, as I said, I'm keeping it super top level. I'm going to hand over to you. You can tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll get stuck into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 2:Oh, all right. So you mentioned copywriting, photography and my homestead. Now the reason why I'm a copywriter is because of the homestead piece, so I'm actually qualified trade, as we call them in Australia. I did an apprenticeship in that when I was in my teens and when I was doing photography on the side as a because I loved it. But when we were looking at moving to a larger property to build our homestead, I'm like, well, going to be out of the capital city, not a lot of easy access to work, and I'd really like to be able to work from the homestead like stay on the property.
Speaker 2:So I started looking at different ways to be able to support ourselves rather than making the property in active farm. I looked at work from home options and this was pre pandemic, so it was a bit more limited then and I just looked at what I was good at, what I really liked, which was business and marketing and writing and I love doing that part of my photography business. So I discovered that copywriting was a thing and I said about upskilling myself and training myself in anticipation of working from home, and that was well, I don't know, like five years or more ago now and yeah, and now that is my profession.
Speaker 1:So X-Trady turn writer, tell us your accolade when it comes to being a female tradeswoman.
Speaker 2:So I discovered this was kind of after the fact, but I discovered that I was actually the first female wall and ceiling fixer to complete complete an apprenticeship in Western Australia. I mean, I was aware that there were other women working in the trade, but to have the call for the formal qualification I didn't find that out to quite a few years later and I was like, oh, that's kind of a feather in my cap.
Speaker 2:but everybody cares, but that was last century, so that was pretty cool, I mean at the time. You're aware that there's like not a lot of other women doing it and you know, I always assumed that over time you know, 10 years, 20 years there would be a lot more women in the trades and, if I'm honest, it hasn't really progressed as much as I thought it would. And it's interesting, these visions of progress that you have when you're younger and your teens and your 20s, and then get to mid 40s, where I'm at now, and it's like, okay, so the world doesn't actually move that fast, you know, and sometimes that's a good thing, you know. I mean, we moved here to kind of slow down and yeah, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to like, I want to get to that because that's what we're going to talk about. And but one thing I would say is I totally am down with what you're saying about you know that progression of women in the workforce and you know equality and like seeing women in trades and that sort of thing. But I bet that well, and I see it living in the countryside here, there are women that work outside. They do, they do the you know the women things. You know keeping the home and and those, those sides of things, but they're out doing physical labor as well. So like, yeah, yeah, there's that it's happening, but maybe not just, maybe just not in trades.
Speaker 2:It's happening in addition to everything else we usually do.
Speaker 1:Pretty much so we have known each other for a while. Yeah, probably three years.
Speaker 2:I met you in 2020. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, okay, cool. So I was just thinking back. We worked together when you did some copywriting for me and then you and I worked together when I was coaching you in my membership and we've kept we've kind of kept in touch and I've had you on my wish list for a while because I because obviously we've both recently relatively recently made treach at God, you know gone for the tree change, yep, and I love to talk to people who have had these experiences. You know, find out why, you know what was the calling and that sort of thing. And you popped up a couple of weeks ago, made contact and I was like there's my opportunity. But yeah, really. So I've been super keen to catch up with you and find out and talk to you about this tree change and like what inspired you to to make the change. And you know, obviously, your experiences and there's been an evolution. You've got this amazing, you know Facebook community group now that is growing far quicker than you even planned, right? You?
Speaker 1:just like absolutely a group and like it's just taken off so we can talk. We're going to talk about all of that, but I'm keeping this super loose and just seeing where it takes us and I'm just going to go with the topics life, health and the universe and see how those connect, like, with what's been going on with you and why you made those choices and life changes and yeah, absolutely, I think people are doing it right.
Speaker 2:I get that sense, but I don't know, I think so, I think so. I mean, were they there before and they'll just. You know, I guess a bit more hidden, because, yeah, because there wasn't a way for people to connect, which it's one of the reasons why I started the group. But we can come back around to that. But what I have discovered is that our story mine and Corey it's my husband, corey story really resonates with a lot of people and a lot of people kind of maybe in their 30s and 40s and 50s and beyond.
Speaker 2:How we got to where we are is something that so many people pop up and say, oh my God, that's exactly like us. And it's basically we were working a lot of hours, we were both tradies, a lot of hours away from home, a lot of hours in the car, and we had great dual income, trading income. We spent it on going away on holidays, on buying different toys. We were just naturally working within that consumer mindset, had like some credit cards and I think we had like finance on a car and finance for like it can, like all these little bibs and bobs. And I think there was a point and this is. It was the mindset and the lifestyle shift that came first. It's this realization that's like what are we doing? Like it's like is this, is this, it Is this forever. Like it's just this working constantly to just have a life. And it was like and you're just shoving those bits of life around all these hours that you're working and paying all this money for a home that you're not even in most of the time it was, and all this fill it with stuff that you liked in the moment, and there was an instant gratification and then it's just tucked away in a box somewhere in a room or you never use it again. So it was this really kind of well, I guess it was gradual, but we were both coming to this realization and it was coincided with just this like increasing periods of stress and exhaustion.
Speaker 2:We worked in trades, we were getting older, our bodies were kind of. You know you, just when you're in your twenties, you don't even, you don't even think about it. You don't envision what it's like getting old injuries that we had when we were in our 20s start coming back to niggle, even fully healed. They start coming back to niggle at you in your mid to late 30s and it's like, oh you know, this is I don't know. We just got to this crux and we're like this, something has to change.
Speaker 2:And you know, and even though we're earning a big income, we felt like we were never really quite getting ahead. And I'm like what is the solution to this? Like, is it working more and earning more money? Like I've got no more capacity here, like neither of us have any more capacity here and we just I just said about kind of researching sound silly, but like how to budget and how much of your money should you be spending on different things? And I found resources like the barefoot investor that's an Australian resource and there's lots of other ones like that and it kind of just started with getting a sense of, okay, it's not how much money, how much I'm working, how much money I'm earning that's coming in, is what I'm doing with it once I've got it so started looking at what we were spending money on, like useless stuff, what debts we were carrying. So we were earning money and then just paying it out to like other people, like credit cards and whatnot, every month, and we were always running behind.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that that signaled a big shift in how we approached our finances and our life. Yeah, I think that was the first big step and we're like, oh my god, this is, this changes the game. Like suddenly we were back in control, we weren't in this cycle of like working in consumerism, and it was like someone switched on a light and it's, it was well. I mean, yeah, it was life changing so and that that was the point that opened up so many more possibilities, because it's like we can actually make the long-term plans now, because we can see how it's possible. We're not just the future isn't just this foggy idea of kind of want to do this thing but don't know how to get there. Suddenly, like we had the ability and we and you know We'll privilege and watch it enough to have that income so we could do the long-term planning.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was and we kind of asked ourselves, like what is? What is it that we want to do in the future? Like what is that long-term plan? What is? What do we want? And we're just like we just want a simpler life, we want to. We're both homebodies, we want to enjoy being at home and you know, and it just kind of evolved from there, like starting to research Home life and doing stuff from home. And Cory was a bit of a gardener and he was growing his veggies and we had we had a couple of acres at the time. So you know, we got some chickens, the you know kind of gateway animal, and homesteading and we just that was, yeah, that was kind of the first steps and yeah, a lot of people have said that that journey kind of resonates with them like they hit this crux point of bodily exhaustion, mental exhaustion and just going. Something has to change.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Yeah, we, because we were in the city just Kind of similar story. But we, you know, we had two young kids and we had a mortgage, quite a big mortgage, and a business, and Two small kids and we were playing tag team. So we weren't, as you said, we weren't spending very long at home because we were out working all the time.
Speaker 1:Jim was open from 6 am Till 9 pm Every day. One of us was pretty much always there and so it was like Darren would go to work at 6 o'clock in the morning, he'd come home at 10, I'd go to work, he'd take the kids. So none of us ever spent any time together as a family and it was like a gradual kind of like Surely there's got to be more. And also we became, we started to become more conscious of like the consumerism stuff and also like Just living in a toxic environment, you know, and yeah, just the rush, and like all of those health things, and I don't know we, we kind of would visit Country, countryside, places. Did you do that? Or was where you?
Speaker 2:because did you live in Perth? Yeah, we were on the outskirts of Perth.
Speaker 2:So we were already semi, yeah, okay. Well, it's actually interesting you say that because when we were going on our holidays we would go on four-wheel drive camping holidays and they got more and more remote, like we set up Like a solar system and it was all kind of self-contained, so you'd go more of the beaten track and there were so many times when we were camping and we're like we can live like this, yeah Well, like this is beautiful, like imagine, imagine living in a place like this, like it was just those conversations that start, I guess, building up in your heart and your mind and yeah, and the, you know the reliance on yourself and the preparation, and you know, once you start questioning consumerism, what's the flip side of that. It's like, well, if I don't buy it, I have to either go without or I have to Supply myself, make it myself. So that's, that was the first steps into what does self-sufficiency look like? What does sustainable living look like? Um, no, I don't want to buy a six dollar lettuce. I can, you know, I can grow it quite easily in my garden.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you a funny story the first time we grew lettuce and I popped it. I harvested it, popped in the fridge. It was still fresh, crispy, really like good to use six weeks later. I'm like, hang on, lettuce doesn't last that long. Like I've never bought a lettuce A week that doesn't go slimy or gross with it a week right or wilted or whatever. I'm like Wow.
Speaker 2:And that was kind of the moment where I started thinking about our food systems and like the transport and what impact that has in regards to like not just the food, um, but you know, on the environment and like you know the carbon footprint and all that that sort of stuff, as opposed to just walking out to my garden sniffing something off and, you know, walking back into my kitchen. It was, yeah, it was quite, quite eye-opening, and then you know that can send you down the rabbit hole in regards to nutrition of our food and you know all that stuff. So, yeah, it's definitely this progressive snowball effect that, um, that is a growing awareness, I guess, a growing personal evolution and awareness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting and, and like part of the reason I called this podcast life, health in the universe is because you start to see the interconnectedness of all of those things. Right, when you're more conscious of your lifestyle and you start to realize your impact on the environment. You know, I don't know, there's just so many different things that you go oh that, uh, ting like this, like aha moments all over the place. So you started out pretty small, right, couple like couple acres. Were you renting then or were you? Did you own the?
Speaker 2:No, we owned that.
Speaker 2:That was the first property we bought when we kind of got together and started, um, cory always wanted property. I was a more like urban gal and I'm like, uh, you know what, it's still close enough to the city and it can be like my country estate and, um, at these visions of you know, english gardens and everything like that. But then you get into an Australian country area and you're like, oh, okay, so that that won't work. Well, at least you know here in WA. And but yeah, I, yeah. I ended up loving, loving being on the land, the peace and the freedom and the space and how much more connected you are to the environment and the weather and the sky and and everything.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so started started Small.
Speaker 2:it was like a small, it was a five acre property and we had a big house and it was just me, cory, and uh, cory, son Seth, um, and then once kind of Seth grew up and went out and did his own thing, we're like, ah, we're in this massive house, just us too. We don't even use our for, but we just have the back end closed up all the time. We're like this is ridiculous. Um, so, and yeah, and that kind of coincided. At the same time we're like, oh, what if we had like a bigger property and smaller house, because we don't need that much room, but we would love some larger livestock animals?
Speaker 2:We had kind of babysitted some cows for a few months and we loved having cows on our property, uh, but multiple cows on a five acre property, it's, it won't, it won't last long. So so we were kind of looking for maybe like 20 to 40 acres and uh, we're like, okay, so how far? Like, if we had to drive back into Perth for work, how far would we be willing to drive to have the lifestyle we want? We're like, okay, so let's say, uh, within an hour from, like that, the outskirts of Perth, and we literally got a map through a big like circle around this point and just went okay, let's start looking at properties and seeing what's like, what's available.
Speaker 2:And again, this was only an option because we had spent like a few years, um paying down and getting rid of all our debt. The only thing we had left was the mortgage, um, and that in itself was incredibly freeing. So I don't know, it's hard to understand, it's hard to explain to people that still have the weight of all these niggly little debts, um, once they're gone, it is yeah, it's. They say, it's like a weight lifted and that's literally how it feels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um yeah, and then we just started looking at different properties and this one that kept on coming up, but it was 100 acres and I'm like you know, 100 acres, that's ridiculous, um.
Speaker 1:Now the soil pasture, was it? Or do you have some like bush as well?
Speaker 2:Uh it was a combination of. It was a combination and it'd been on the market for ages. Uh, it was not too far from york, which is a lovely tourist town here in w a Um, so, and you know it was near highways and like, oh, maybe let's, let's go have a look, let's just have a look at what look like at least going to be ridiculously too big, but let's just have a look. So it was this glorious winter's day as we get here in w a Um, sun shining, just beautiful weather, and you know we drove, the real estate agent, drove us up to the property and there was like a local farmer that was um adjusting his sheep on the property and they were. It was lambing season, so there was like sheep bounding around with, you know, all their little lambs, and it was.
Speaker 2:It was like green, like green, uh, like like bits of pasture and there was like hilly bits with large granite outcrops and there was like bush sections and I'm just like, and there was like a creek running through it and I'm just like, I'm like, oh no, this is it. And I could see, I could. I kind of looked over and looked at Cory. He wasn't looking at me, I was just looking at his face and I'm like, oh, we're done, we're done. And the first thing the real estate agent did was like he, he drove us right up to the top of the hill because we got this very high point on our property and it was just these spectacular views and and and I yeah, I knew that we were done. I'm like this is this isn't funny.
Speaker 1:We're gonna live. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah Was there a home on the property, completely vacant, block, oh my God. And the funny thing is because we only built our first house and I said to Karissa we are never doing that again.
Speaker 1:Oh, you built the first one, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm like we are never only building again. That was such a stressful experience and admittedly it was a large house. So, yeah, we bought a vacant block. It's like, oh, we're gonna have to build again and we're not paying someone else to build it, we just build it ourselves. I'm like I did say I'd never do that again. So yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We used to have calls and you were kind of like living in. I can't even remember Like your kitchen was outside. Is it still outside? No, no. No, so we were you were basically in like one room, weren't you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So two adults, three dogs, two cats, yeah, so it was just like a six metre by 2.4. Donger, it's a donger.
Speaker 1:Like a container.
Speaker 2:You don't know what a donger is. I do, yeah, I don't know if it's a Western.
Speaker 2:Australian, I'm sure it's not WA thing. Okay, so it's like, yeah, it's like a size of a container, but it is constructed slightly different and its purpose is for accommodation. Oh, is it Like they quite often have them set up on like mining sites and stuff and have like a big? Oh yeah, okay, yeah, it's like those accommodation boxes? Yeah, yeah, except for ours didn't have like a bathroom or anything. So we had our kitchen outside, which is kind of camp kitchen style, a barbecue and we also had I think we had like we had a port-a-lou but a ashow was like a alfresco shower, which is interesting, yeah so, and we basically lived there while we built the house.
Speaker 2:And the reason Okay, originally we were going to build the house, like gradually over time, while living at our old house, and we were just about ready to put our house on the market because we thought, oh, you know, it's going to take a while to sell because things weren't very like, the market wasn't very active at that time. This was late 2019 and we're like, okay, we're just about to put the house on the market, we'll wait until it greens up, like you know, april, may, and then we'll put it on the market. And you know, obviously we know what happened in early 2020 and we're just like, oh, okay, so that puts out those plans on hold. We got to the point of about May, june, and we're like, you know what it's. Just, you know it's going to take ages to sell. Anyway, let's just put it, let's just talk to the real estate agent, put it on the market.
Speaker 2:And, you know, see what happens and see what she thinks. And she came out and just went. Oh, you know, let me take a couple of photos with my phone. I will, you know, put it up as a sneak peek of something coming. And the market was like super, super, it wasn't taking off yet Like everyone was still at home and she put a couple of photos up on her Facebook like that weekend and by like the next weekend she had booked in like multiple people to come through our house and we're like we're still, we still got like to put carpet down in some rooms and finished painting stuff and she's like people want to see it and that was our first indication of okay, people are like mass exiting, like the urban centres and looking for properties.
Speaker 2:And it was just this weird like real estate blip, like in the middle of the pandemic right, and yeah, so they, a bunch of people, came out on the Monday. We had a couple of offers. One was way above what we were asking and they were like a great couple. And, yeah, we accepted and we're like, oh crap, now we have to, like you know, pack up and move out of you know, after 13 years of life here, to a vacant block with nothing on it.
Speaker 2:And that was just like what are we doing? Additionally, they in WA they had they were closing, they had the regional borders closed and this property is in a different region to our other property. So we were trying to like bring things back and forth but like we didn't have anything on our licenses saying we were living here or we didn't have any purpose to be here, it was really quite. It was a gamble every time trying to move things back and forth, right.
Speaker 2:So, but yeah, we made it here. And then, you know, the day came when we came here for the final time, basically, and we didn't have to go back to the other place because it belonged to somebody else, and it's just like what have we done? What have we done?
Speaker 1:Wow, that's such a cool story, like I kind of love. I love that it's just like life's happening right, yeah, and it's kind of like there's some intention behind it, but at the same time you're being kind of carried along in this yes, flow of things just happening and falling into place, yeah. You feel like that happens to you a lot.
Speaker 2:I've never quite felt that before. That was like an interesting period. I mean, there was a whole, obviously a whole bunch of stuff going on at the time and it was surreal. But you know, sometimes I think when you are on the right path, then there's a certain momentum.
Speaker 2:That happens with that. Yeah, sometimes it's like a smooth flowing river and sometimes it's the rapids, but you're heading in the direction you're supposed to be heading and there's this underlying sense of things will be okay and things will work out, Even though in the moment you might be a bit wild eyed and going oh crap.
Speaker 1:Well, here we are in the middle of a big yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just like where do we start?
Speaker 1:Yeah, right. So you had your donger cab kitchen a flat word and you started your YouTube channel and I watched a couple episodes and it was Corey putting in fence posts. Yeah, what a job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was one of the first things we did. We had actually constructed a shed on the property. We had enough time to construct a shed on the property before we got here and that basically had our whole life in it. So we didn't use that for living in or anything. I know some people kind of live in their shed for a bit, but our whole life was in that shed. So we had the donger. We had a small fenced yard for the dogs to keep them safe, because we didn't want them roaming around 100 acres. And then, yeah, first thing we did was start fencing in our what we call our house yard, and that, ultimately, is where our house is. It's where the dogs can safely like traverse around us about an acre worth fenced in, and then from there we started on the on the house. That was early 2021.
Speaker 1:We started building the house. Always bits and pieces to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, yes, the bits and pieces, you know, because we got. We got to a point where it's like, okay, this is liveable, you know, start working on. You know other stuff like setting up other infrastructure, like setting up like building the chicken coop and a shade house for the veggie patch and fencing for like larger animals, and yeah, and then suddenly it's 2024 and it's like whoa, okay, we've got like this homestown, like looking at chickens walking past my window just now you know they're off doing their chicken things, you know, having chicken babies and giving me eggs.
Speaker 2:and you know, we've got we've got pigs and we're planning to get a milk cow this year, which I'm so excited about, you know. And we've got our orchards and our veggie patches producing and it's, yeah, it's, it's like actually happening. Well, it has been happening. But, yeah.
Speaker 1:so when you first bought the property like I know you said you were kind of Into. You know Cory had always wanted property and you know land, I guess, and you found this place and you know all of those things happened and there you were. When you first moved there and you started building your home and you were doing your copywriting, did you envisage that where you are now is what you wanted from it? Or has it been this kind of continued evolution of like, actually I really like this stuff and I want to do more of it and then all of a sudden I think I'm a homesteader?
Speaker 2:Like. No, I think we had quite a strong vision and that's important, and it was like a joint vision of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do. And I'm not sure if we knew exactly how the details would work out. But you know it's difficult if you've got two people moving to a large property and one person wants to be, say, a traditional broadacre farmer and another person just wants to have like this simplistic kind of a little bit more internalised like homesteading life. It's this mismatch of ideals. On the surface might seem to be both possible, but it's going to kind of split your energy with what you're working on.
Speaker 2:So by the time we actually started like committed to moving this direction, we were both on the same page in regards to like what we envisioned, which was a much simpler life, a slower life, something that was more self-sufficient, more sustainable. We know we both wanted a veggie garden, we both wanted an orchard, we wanted like a smaller house. We always enjoyed like cooking from scratch and that sort of stuff. So that was a skill that we. I really like cooking Corey's a perfectly fine cook, but I particularly like cooking and that kind of flowed on into learning how to preserve and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:So it was important to be in alignment and I think that came from actually having conversations about what our long-term goals and visions are, instead of just assuming what the other person wanted. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's not exact, it's aligned. It's not exactly the same. You know, corey's vision might include spending a lot more time in his shed doing his welding and out on the land doing little projects, which he loves to do and like building bibs and bobs, and mine might be, you know, focused on another area, but they're aligned and that's the kind of important bit and this we both wanted that sense of simplicity and peace and space.
Speaker 1:So I know that it's. Yeah, I totally get that. But it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Because do you find that there's like a bit of a pull? Obviously, you're still working, you're doing your online business and you're able to do that, but there's that kind of like is simplicity, you know, living off the land, working on your farm, is that enough, Is it? It's like, you know, there's that kind of pull for simplicity, but there's also that need for to be connected to the To work, Like, would you like to not work and just live off the land? I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just kind of Words are coming out of my mouth. It's just yeah, like. I guess that it's like, is it? Do you feel like it would be enough to just be living, to just be living, Because I think we're so, we're so. We're in such a, you know, a world where it's far, generally fast paced and it's about do, do, do, do, do, do, but it's for, like, work and yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So that's a good question, because it's not. Yeah, I never really envisioned just this, I guess romanticized idea of living off the land and kind of skipping through the orchard on a daily basis and like the idea is nice, but it's like it's just having access to those moments. What I actually envisioned was a life like you said, that was more connected. Yes, we wanted like space and peace and simplicity, but we didn't want to be fully isolated from society. So my vision was being able to like wake up in the morning and not having to drive an hour and a half to work, to be able to enjoy the morning, enjoy the landscape, go out and you know feed the animals, go to the veggie patch, have a leisurely breakfast, you know wander into my office and do my work but have the flexibility to be up and down and whatever, like I have flexibility during my day and then you know of an evening.
Speaker 2:Then you know cooking a nice meal and enjoying spending time with each other and watching the sun go. Yeah, it's just these. This vision I had wasn't just being like a farmer type situation, and I think that's where homesteading differs as well, because the key thing there is the home. It's not producing on a commercial scale, it's producing for yourself and for your home, and the reality of that looks different for everybody else. For everybody it looks different and but in essence, like homesteading, or even the term homestead, has like a long history in Australia, even though current popularity online would lead one to think it is an exclusively American term. But it's not.
Speaker 2:It is got a long history in Australia, admittedly a colonial one of like the large properties, and the homestead was the series of buildings and infrastructure directly around the home that included, you know, like sheds and places where you would keep animals and stuff and that's where they would do the production, like the food production for the farm, for the people living on the farm.
Speaker 2:So that was the homestead and I feel like how we apply it today is how we're core and I are intending to apply today is much the same thing. It's starting from the heart of the home, working on like producing a lifestyle for us Instead of buying. We don't like exclusive, we don't supply 100% of our needs, so it's not just about going you know stuff. The outside world is just being more self sufficient and there's also an element of what's called community sufficiency, so like giving back a bit to your community if you have like access or you know making connections so you can like seed swap and plant swap or not. Everybody can make everything for themselves, so you might source one thing from someone else locally and you know you might have access of one thing that you're, you know, sharing out. So, oh, did that answer your question? Probably, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it was kind of a weird round about complicated question, but you've got the hang of it. You deciphered it. Okay, let's talk about community. You're on 100 acres, which probably possibly felt like in the middle of nowhere when you first got there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes, yeah, I can't see any of them. They're there though. Yeah, we've got. We've got a farmer's property next to us which is like quite a few hundred acres, and then we've got a number of other neighbors around our fence line who are also on 100 acres.
Speaker 2:So, one people that are on 100 acres don't generally bump into each other, yeah, and they don't pop over to visit as such, because they're on 100 acres, because they they don't want to be bumping into the neighbors, right? So but yeah, we know, you know, we know a couple of them quite well, so yeah, but yeah, we don't see them. We can't see them from here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so you have a, but you have a very strong online community. Do you feel like let's talk about that and how that all started, but do you feel like that kind of fills a gap, maybe Because you're you know? It's kind of you're connected to a whole bunch of people in your community online, aren't?
Speaker 2:you. Yeah, I like so. Okay. So how that came about was, in our early days we were very inspired by home setting, youtube channels and different channels that dealt with things like permaculture and all these different ways, more sustainable ways of living and stewarding our land and that sort of thing that inspired us and we kind of said, well, maybe when we do ours, we will also create videos for YouTube so we can inspire others the way we were inspired and that's that's what we started making videos, but it was. It just felt like nobody was watching. Like we had a very small following, which was fine, and it just got to a point where I like, oh well, just nobody's watching anyway, so we just paused it. And then we came back and there was like a lot more people online.
Speaker 2:It was hard, it was hard to find Australian home setting content. With searches we could, it was just really really difficult to find other channels and we just thought, oh, maybe like this, not many other people out there doing this. Not that we thought we were special. We just thought, oh, maybe it's just a bit too odd. And you know, to be honest, there's a lot of people out there doing this, but they don't call it home setting, they just call it living right, they're out on property, they have to be self sufficient, they have to do stuff themselves. So it's kind of a little bit of a normal way for a lot of people in rural and remote Australia to live anyway, like without naming it home setting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was. You know, we kind of met another home setting YouTube Tuba locally. They came to buy a tractor off us and we're like they said oh yeah, we do YouTube. We're like oh, we did YouTube as well. They're like oh okay, we're going to check out your channel. And then a couple of days later she messaged me. She goes you know what? I thought your channel was going to be really crap. She's like but I watched it. You guys are awesome why did you stop making videos?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm just like oh, I don't know, we just kind of got out of the habit of it, we didn't think anybody was watching.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so that's my friend locally, that's Honeybee Farmstead, and she kind of guilted us into starting again. And yeah, and we started again and there was just this kind of upswell of people that had also started channels, australian people that had started channels in the meantime, but we were connecting very slowly on YouTube. Youtube isn't great for connection, well, for interaction and discussion. And that was that was the point where I'm like I just want to like chat with all these other people that are doing similar things to us, but you, you're limited by just commenting on a video and then replying to that comment. And which is when I went well, there's like Facebook groups where people can just, you know, have discussions, but then there's a lot of Facebook Facebook groups that are just pretty crap, to be honest, like full of nasty people. You can't ask questions, you can't be vulnerable, and it's like they're just not nice places to be. And I was like, oh, so what do I like? I just feel so stuck. I want to have this community but, like the places that are existing out there are just crap. And it was just a moment where I said to DeCore. I went, oh, stuff it, I'll just. I'll just start my own group, like I need like, and I know I wanted it to be Australia wide. And yeah, and I just did that on like.
Speaker 2:I think we were driving home from like, from like boxing day lunch or something, and I got home, corey went to have a nap, like you do after a big boxing day lunch, and by the time he got back up I had like started the group, you know, invited him. He got up. I want you have to join this group. You have to help me like I need a couple of members here, and yeah, and then I think it was almost a year later that we took exactly almost exactly 12 months later that we hit like our 10,000 members. Wow, that was the beginning of this year, and now we're already up to like 13 and a half thousand or something. So we've grown by another third just in a month.
Speaker 2:So there's amazing, definitely this momentum going of people, and one of the questions I asked when people joined the group is what do you want to join the Australian Homesetters community and people like I want to like. I want to better life for my family, I want to learn how to like grow foods. I don't want to have to rely on the supermarket. So, like this whole thing, like people are just like there's definitely a movement towards I want to have this capacity to know I can look after myself and my family and, you know, have food security, have better quality food, have like a simpler life. And yeah, it's, it's and it's really it's taken off and I don't think I anticipated like how much of a community, like how much people needed that community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I recently joined. I'm one of those. I saw that.
Speaker 2:I was like oh.
Speaker 1:I know this lady.
Speaker 2:Oh, do I decline or?
Speaker 1:And what I really have liked so far. I haven't spent a whole bunch of time on there but from the posts that I have seen, there's just a real variety of people. Like you know, it can feel, I think, the idea of even for us in our time of life at the moment, because we've got a whole bunch of other stuff going on growing our own. So, yeah, like a lot of people who are like, I think when you're like you know, I'm doing a lot of things, like I'm doing chicken, doing all of the things feels a bit much.
Speaker 1:So when you see that there's someone who's just like growing pumpkins in their back garden, you know, and that's one thing they're doing to help with their being self sufficient and you know and like helping it people are doing it in their backyards and cities, and it's just that kind of yeah, the philosophy and the ethos and the and the intention behind it, which is really nice, and that that's you get a real sense of that inside your community, which is really, which is really nice. Yeah it can be a bit overwhelming, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, we do try not to encourage like that Pinterest version of of homesteading, like we want to celebrate the stuff that people are doing. But it's not just about, like productivity, porn, right, like, yeah, I, what you're doing is awesome and we want to celebrate that. But you know, even if you, you know harvested, you know a bowl full of cherry tomatoes, that is, that's wicked. You grew that. Yeah, you did that. Yeah, you know. And some people and we've got a lot of urban homesteaders in there and yeah, they don't, you know, they don't grow massive amounts of veggies, but they've got a couple of really good places where they source, like vegetables while it's in season and they might preserve it in different ways, or they might be particularly passionate about supporting, like certain farmers or you know, organic sources of protein, or they involved in their community local community gardens, or like they have a worm farm, like there's so many, just little things. You don't have to do all the things to be be a homestead. I mean, there's, yeah, there's plenty of people in there that don't even identify as a homesteader and that's fine, you know, that's just a word that you know we took on ourselves and I called the group, but there's, there's such diversity across Australia, diversity in climates, so the different things people can grow when, like you know, there's I didn't even know this, but there's a place in like Canberra or just outside of Canberra.
Speaker 2:I interviewed her for, interviewed her in the group she's got only 100 days of growing season. They had. She had a like a plant killing frost one Christmas which just wiped out her summer garden like she had planted stuff just a couple, yeah so, and she's like she's snowbound, she's. She's got this massively short growing season, you know. And then you have your people in tropical climates that have got a completely different growing season. Then I'm in an arid environment as opposed to other people that have these. You know perfectly warm, temperate environments and every challenge is different and how we homestead in those places are different as well. Like you know, people that are in urban areas. They might want to have chickens but they don't really have the space or they don't want to contend with the noise. They might have quails, or, you know, rabbits or guinea pigs or something, depending on where you are, you know, as a source of protein. Sorry, if anyone is you know guinea pigs?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't know that. I knew they did it in South America.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what they climbed status, but some people have them as trigger warnings.
Speaker 2:Some people use guinea pigs as pasture management as well, so they will have them in movable. Yeah, like, like kicking trailers, but guinea pig trailers, exactly Because they're quite gentle on the grass so they might just move them. Like, don't have them for eating, but they might just move them around. Say, if it was a yacht, like a my yard out there or someone's backyard, they move them around to, like, keep the grass down. So they're putting animals to work in their home. So it's, mowing the lawn isn't a job that someone has to do every week, you know, and it's just then you got that little bit of your life back.
Speaker 2:You got these cute little critters that are you know trying to run around, live in their best little life and everyone's, you know, chill and happy, and yeah, that's kind of all the. They're the little puzzle pieces that just suddenly one day you sit back and you realize, oh, this is, this is a picture of a homestead Like. It's my version of it. You know, this is my vote. Might, might not fit someone else's ideal, but yeah, that that's what it is.
Speaker 1:I think what's just popped up for me, then, is that it's almost like conscious living. It's not getting caught up in the rat race that you talked about at the beginning. You know where you're. We're on the cat, getting the credit cards, we're in debt, we're working just to make it through to the next paycheck, to pay all the bills, to do all the things. But actually making conscious choices around how we live and the things that we can do to have a better life so that we can actually enjoy it yes, that's kind of what it feels like to me that it's a bit more of a conscious choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yes. It's definitely a more intentional life, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool, we're getting pretty close to the end of our hour and this is a massive question, probably for the last little bit. But we talked, we touched on it a little bit when we had our chat a couple of weeks ago and it's just this idea of, like, the impact that we're being told that we're having on the environment. Yeah, yeah, carbon footprint, etc, etc. And there was an article that we both had seen and I think it was about how people who grow their own are having an impact on the environment. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, that was an article that came out and I think the like, the news outlets that picked it up and they, they applied a much more sensationalist headline than I think it deserved, because once you read the actual research article, it's it was it was quite positive.
Speaker 2:I mean it. I mean it did talk about the inputs into, like urban style agriculture and how you have like you need to buy in or the infrastructure like maintaining infrastructure, buy in equipment and it's that aspect of it that it was saying, oh, this is actually increasing your carbon footprint. But it's concerning that, like the, I guess the news outlets felt that it was enough of a draw to say, oh, home gardeners are doing a much more damage to the environment than large scale farmers, like it's. I mean it was obviously deliberately inflammatory, but it does. Yeah, I guess it's concerning in the way of is this like a narrative that they're trying to plant? Yeah, discourage people from trying to do stuff themselves you know?
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't think you know the average person growing their own veggies is going to put willies or coals at a business, but I don't know like at what.
Speaker 1:there must be some certain scale or that it might like. There's kind of a revolution going on with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe, maybe I'll be like single handedly responsible for taking down coals. Hope they never listen to this.
Speaker 1:You have to change your name. Yeah, I think. Yeah, that's an interesting topic, isn't it? And it's, and it's just like farming in general and how we're being, I'm going to say, led to believe that it's bad for the environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like these two diametrically opposite ideas. Right, we've got these massive food systems that are very reliant on people needing to purchase food because they're supporting big, big, money-making businesses through transport and large farms, and the farmers may well be getting completely screwed and the only way they can make a profit is by going bigger and bigger and bigger and getting the profit through the volume, and you end up with these monocultures. And then, on the opposite side, you've got people growing like a small, diverse garden and I don't know. Yeah, I'd hate to get this sense that there's this narrative emerging that these two things can't exist, or they feel that the smaller producer or the home producer is actually a threat in some capacity to that bigger system. I mean, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2:I mean, if people are already of a mind that they think that growing your own food is a bit ridiculous and, believe me, some people they're just like why would you grow tomatoes when you can just go buy tomatoes? And it's like that's completely not the point. Previously that might have even been like a halfway decent argument, like you just had this assumption that there would always be food on the shelves, but, like in 2020, I'm sure I'm not the only person that walked into supermarket going. I have never in my life seen supermarket shelves bear empty and it's like okay, so this is a point of vulnerability. We were already on that kind of road, but it's like, all right, we need like our food systems are vulnerable, our food security is vulnerable because they're so big and centralized. I think it's a valuable thing to have more people like diversifying, that you know those food systems and that food security.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a great point and probably a really good note to close on, just like that. Yeah, I guess, looking at the purpose behind it when people do say, why would I do that? Why is it important, you know, look back a couple of years to what was going on and I think you know, probably we'd be foolish to believe that that can't happen again or won't happen again and that could potentially be worse. So being able to support ourselves and our communities, I think, like people that we know, as you were talking about, you know sharing ideas, sharing knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yes, that idea of community. Yeah, community for sufficiency. So I know we say self sufficiency a lot, but yes, that that needs to be paired with that community sufficiency, because you can't do it all by yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great. Thank you so much. It's been really great to hear your journey and we're going to get more people into your Facebook group, hopefully.
Speaker 2:Tell them to behave.
Speaker 1:We don't take naughty people. Yeah, I've really enjoyed our conversation. It's really great to hear like the whole background story of how you got to where you are and the great work that you're doing in your community and on the planet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to hear like from other people, but somewhere along this journey as well, because, yeah, I feel like it's a really common thread. So, yeah, thank you for chatting with me.
Speaker 1:It's been lovely chatting with you.
Speaker 2:Thanks, amanda, thank you, bye.