130. Growing Kids and Gardens: Homeschooling on the Farm

In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Staci and Jeremy Hill from Missouri. Staci and Jeremy are homeschool parents of 6 children, authors of “The Preserver’s Garden,” and founders of Gooseberry Bridge Farm. The Hill’s started homeschooling from the very beginning, and their oldest is now in college without any traditional public education. About 10 years ago, the Hill family moved from their suburban cul-de-sac to a small farm so they could have animals, space, and learn from the land. They started their business, Gooseberry Bridge Farm, in 2020 with U-pick flowers, but they’ve expanded the business to engage each of their children’s participation. Staci and Jeremy were asked to co-author a book that combined gardening with food preservation strategies. This conversation validates that meaningful education happens through hard work, family connection, and following children’s natural interests.

Website

gooseberrybridge.com

Book

The Preserver’s Garden

Proactive Homeschool Dad (PHD) Course

PHD Course

This Golden Hour

Transcript

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Staci Hill 0:00

It's really just the same thing we tell people who wanna grow their own food is that you can do this. Just do it and they're your kids. You know your kids' best, like you're gonna do a better job than anybody else. And. Don't compare yourself to what you think it should look like. Like it's not school at home. That's the main thing I keep telling people.

Timmy Eaton 0:22

Hey guys. This is Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six, doctor of Education, creator of the Proactive Homeschool dad or PhD course, and host of this Golden Hour podcast that you're listening to right now. We've been homeschooling for almost two decades now, and we've had three of our children go from birth to university without the conventional school system and without a diploma. This Golden Hour Podcast focuses primarily on supporting homeschool dads with their important roles and responsibilities, specifically helping them to align and strengthen their relationships with their spouses and children. But we'll also discuss tons of homeschool topics and books and curricula. So pour an ice cold glass of carbonated water with a lime. Go for a long drive or do a chore, and listen to another inspiring episode of this Golden Hour podcast. You are listening to this Golden Hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Stacey and Jeremy Hill from Missouri. Stacey and Jeremy are homeschool parents of six children, authors of the Preservers Garden, and founders of Gooseberry Bridge Farm. The Hill started homeschooling from the very beginning, and their oldest is now in college without any traditional public education. About 10 years ago, the Hill family moved from their suburban cul-de-sac to a small farm so they could have animal space and learn from the land. They started their business Gooseberry Bridge Farm in 2020 with you pick flowers, but they've expanded the business to engage each of their children's participation. Stacey and Jeremy were asked to co-author a book that combined gardening. With food preservation strategies, this conversation validates that meaningful education happens through hard work, family connection, and following children's natural interests. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast today we are pleased to have with us Stacy and Jeremy Hill from Missouri. Thanks for being with us, you guys.

Jeremy Hill 2:15

Thanks for having us.

Timmy Eaton 2:16

Stacy and Jeremy are the authors of the Preservers Garden, and we'll put that in the show notes and encourage everybody to obtain that awesome book. They're founders of Gooseberry Bridge Farm and they also have a YouTube channel that you can check out on that. And they're about organic regenerative practices, clean living, community sufficiency. And everybody can go to gooseberry bridge.com and check out more about what they're doing, they're also the proud parents of, six children. Add anything you want to the bio and then we'll jump in. Anything else you wanna tell us about either yourselves or gooseberry Bridge Farm? We'll talk about the book quite a bit, but anything else you wanna say before we jump in?

Jeremy Hill 2:49

No, just that we're also a homeschool family. We have, since our oldest is almost 20 now. She's 19 and she'll be 20 this month. So we've homeschooled since. The beginning. Yeah. And it's been a great journey and that has led a lot into why we're doing what we're doing, why we started a business at home, why we got the farm in the first place was for their benefit. Yes. And it's just spiraled from there, but it's really all been about a teaching experience for the kids.

Timmy Eaton 3:19

Several years ago I defended my dissertation at the University of Alberta. And the first question before they got into the formal questioning, which lasted a long time and it was intimidating 'cause here I am talking about home education, writing my dissertation on homeschooling in front of an education faculty. And the first question, the guy was cool, he said, he's so why do, like all homeschoolers buy acreages? Because it is a consistent theme amongst many homeschoolers, obviously not all but tell us a little bit about that. What led to that for you guys?

Jeremy Hill 3:48

It's a great question because yeah, it is a cliche, I guess it's to some extent, yeah. But there's so much you can learn from land, from animals, from taking care of crops, to taking care of animals, to stewardship of the land. There's so much that. The land can teach and having that land is important to do that.

Staci Hill 4:06

Yeah. And the freedom of it being safe for them to just go outside. Like where we lived before, we lived in a subdivision on a cul-de-sac, but we didn't have a fenced yard to play. They had to go out on the road. It was just like, eh, this is a lot. And here we specifically looked for a place where our house was not on the road. So the driveway's really long. There's actually a bridge on the driveway. We can say don't go over the bridge. And then they're pretty much free to be wherever and they have probably six acres of the property where they can really just wander and

Jeremy Hill 4:37

roam and explore and learn.

Staci Hill 4:39

We have 35 ish goats, a dozen or so sheep. We have cows, three, four, but six, I don't know, six

Jeremy Hill 4:46

cows, rabbits,

Staci Hill 4:48

chickens,

Jeremy Hill 4:48

ducks. One goose. Yeah.

Staci Hill 4:50

Double turkeys.

Jeremy Hill 4:51

And the other side of the business that we haven't really talked about, and that wasn't in the bio, is that we do farm baby play dates. So we invite people to come out. And play with our baby animals when we have them. We'll be starting that here in a couple of weeks so they can come out and get hands-on and hold all the baby animals and the rabbits little hall and lop rabbits are. Probably one of the most popular ones we have.

Timmy Eaton 5:12

So either of you homeschooled or how did you guys get into it?

Staci Hill 5:15

We were not homeschooled.

Jeremy Hill 5:17

Neither of

Staci Hill 5:17

us. No. And the homeschool conversation really started with the whole idea that I didn't want someone else spending more time with our kids than we were.

Timmy Eaton 5:26

Yep.

Staci Hill 5:27

That's which, that's pretty common in this homeschool world.

Jeremy Hill 5:31

Yes. Yeah,

Staci Hill 5:33

and it was that combined with, I started looking at kindergartens when our oldest was that age, and she had gone to a half day, two day week preschool. So that seemed like a reasonable amount of school, two half days. And I'm like, why don't have the kindergartens exist? This is dumb. I don't want her spending that much time at school. She's not ready for that. And that just spiraled into. I don't want her spending any time like that much with other people.

Timmy Eaton 5:56

Yeah. No, we had a very similar kind of beginning as well,

Staci Hill 5:59

yeah.

Timmy Eaton 6:00

Was it you, Stacy, that kind of like started asking the questions at first and,

Staci Hill 6:03

oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's always me.

Timmy Eaton 6:06

Yeah. It's true.

Staci Hill 6:07

It's true. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 6:07

Yeah.

Staci Hill 6:08

Wrong.

Timmy Eaton 6:09

Can't argue it.

Jeremy Hill 6:10

I'm in a support role.

Timmy Eaton 6:11

Yeah. Yes, indeed. And so you did this from the beginning then, right? Like from your oldest?

Staci Hill 6:16

Yep. They've never gone to like regular school. The first two did a little bit of preschool and then we, that wasn't working either, so we just gave up on that.

Timmy Eaton 6:25

And how long ago was it that you moved to the acreage?

Staci Hill 6:28

10

Jeremy Hill 6:28

years.

6:28

It'll

Staci Hill 6:29

be

Jeremy Hill 6:29

10

Staci Hill 6:29

years later this year. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 6:30

Okay. So everyone's definitely benefited from that.

Staci Hill 6:33

Our oldest was 10 yeah.

Timmy Eaton 6:35

Perfect.

Staci Hill 6:35

Almost 20, so it works out. Yeah. And the youngest was born after we moved here. He's only seven.

Jeremy Hill 6:41

He's our farm baby.

Timmy Eaton 6:42

And you mentioned Jeremy, that that land teaches so much. What have you guys noticed? What are you most grateful for when it comes to living where you live and doing what you're doing now, how is that impacting their learning and their development?

Jeremy Hill 6:54

Just seeing them be connected to where their food comes from is huge. And also learning so much about the things on the farm. Our youngest who's seven. Last year when he was six would go through our flower fields. 'cause we also host you pick flower flower picking. Our youngest. Would go out there with customers and tell them all the different varieties of flowers and all the insects and every insect, and explain the good insects versus the bad insects and the pros and cons of all the flowers and which ones last the longest. We never taught him that. He just absorbed it from hearing us talk about it, and that was really both validating and also. It's just really cool to see that kids really do absorb all these things just through osmosis. And it just validates what Stacy said, if they're with somebody else 35 hours a week, they're going to be absorbing all those things. I would rather them absorb things from us Yeah. And things that, that we're talking about most of the time.

Staci Hill 7:59

And they also get to interact with people that are visiting our farm and they ask them questions

Timmy Eaton 8:04

people always talk about the idea of socialization and you can't facilitate that more effectively.

Staci Hill 8:08

They're either shocked to find out our kids are homeschooled, or they can tell right away because they are so well spoken and they're used to talking to adults.

Timmy Eaton 8:15

The other thing that, with Jeremy, with what you said about the 35 hours a week, either you're having that influence or somebody else's. The other thing is you're also having the blessing of either somebody else is watching your kids discover or you are beholding them, discover. And I love that aspect where it's my wife and I are the ones, and especially my wife, she's there for the moments of ahas and learning and mistakes and that's so cool to greet the world together.

Jeremy Hill 8:39

Yeah. When I go out and do a project on the farm we put new water lines in. Across our farm a couple weeks ago,

Staci Hill 8:46

which we didn't know how to do.

Jeremy Hill 8:47

We didn't know how to do, but we had a friend who coached us and we figured it out. Yeah. And all three of the little boys the three youngest ones, yeah. They were my shadow the whole time. And they were learning, they were watching, they got bored pretty quickly. But I know that they're gonna remember that they're gonna take. Some piece of that with

Staci Hill 9:04

them. And not just the skills, but the idea that we are figuring it out.

Jeremy Hill 9:08

Yeah.

Staci Hill 9:08

And learning new things still. That's, it's a good example of the whole lifelong learning and all of that. Yeah. 'cause we're always figuring stuff out and they're like how do you do this? I'm like, I don't know. We're gonna go figure it out.

Jeremy Hill 9:18

Yeah. And to know that if they need something done. Look it up, not just, dad had to put in water lines and he learned how to be a plumber so can I.

Timmy Eaton 9:28

And I find that a common strand with that is like a lot of homeschoolers are attracted to entrepreneurship, and I think it's because there's this wide exposure to things and there's this thing of oh here's a question or here's something, let's figure this out. And that appeals to somebody who wants to identify problems and then start a business surrounding that. Have you noticed anything that the choice to live out on the land what has been like a challenge or like what challenge does that pose to your family, to your children, making that choice to be out there,

Jeremy Hill 9:54

it's hard to point to a negative. Yeah. Honestly we moved out here 10 years ago and at the time I had a full-time career where I was away from the home and working 60 hours a week. And it was hard. That made it really difficult for me being gone and coming home and seeing what they had done while I was gone. Yeah. 'cause it was so much more consequential what they were doing during the day. It wasn't just, time wasting activities. They're really getting in and doing things part of that led along with other factors to us making the really hard decision. But I'm glad we made it for me to leave that job and do this full time. And then it led to us doing more things so that we would have the income, the farm baby play dates. We sell, plant starts that Stacy grows to the public. We do the U pick flowers. We wrote a book.

Staci Hill 10:48

We're doing a farmer's market now.

Jeremy Hill 10:50

We're doing a farmer's market now, growing more produce. So all things that five years ago, six years ago, we never would've dreamed of. But I guess, as I say, necessity is the mother of invention. And we had to come up with ways to replace income. And we did. Yeah.

Staci Hill 11:05

And we did some of that before he left, like we were getting started with that.

Jeremy Hill 11:09

Yeah. And it validated and helped us realize that we can do this.

Staci Hill 11:13

Yeah. We, It was the second year of the business that he left the other job. But the first year, part of what led to us doing that was that was our oldest. Daughter's first year of high school. So I wanted the whole like starting a business thing to be part of her high school experience.

Timmy Eaton 11:25

Yeah.

Staci Hill 11:26

It was like a different kind of curriculum, but I'm like, we're gonna start a business so that you know how to do this. Like we didn't know how to do it. We just. So everything we did, we had her help with that. And she has her own business now, like that She pretty much started at 14. She has a home bakery.

Timmy Eaton 11:43

Wow.

Staci Hill 11:43

And she's in college now. So she's doing less hours at the bakery and more. College stuff.

Timmy Eaton 11:49

So what's their involvement in the business and maybe more detail on what is the business? What is Gooseberry Bridge Farm?

Staci Hill 11:56

So the business we started the first year with you pick flowers. We planted some flowers, and then that happened to be 2020. So it went quicker than we thought basically because we were open during the summer of 2020 and people could come out and pick flowers. It was an outdoor activity.

Jeremy Hill 12:12

Socially distanced.

Staci Hill 12:13

It was all of the things that it, needed to be, to get people out there, and they had nothing else to do.

Jeremy Hill 12:17

We didn't realize how lucky we were our first year doing this, that all the movie theaters were closed. The malls weren't open.

Staci Hill 12:23

Nobody was at camp, so

Jeremy Hill 12:25

Everybody came here. Was awesome.

Staci Hill 12:27

It really just caused things to go quickly. And when people started coming out here to pick flowers, they saw our goats and they're like we wanna see those. Everybody loved the goats, they would go to the fence. So when we started the next season, we started with flowers and. Started letting people play with the animals. We set up pens so they could come in and play with the animals, and we do all of that by appointment. And our kids are out there for all of this. Different kids have different roles at different times but our second daughter, Annie, she is always in the pen with the rabbits, like teaching people about rabbits, and she's been doing that. For five years now, but this year we're going to have her graduate to teach people about cows because she's 15 and she's been bottle feeding the cows. Like they're bonded with her and she's been halter training them and getting them all ready for this, and so she will be handling the cows and letting people interact with them and making it sure it's safe while our younger boys are gonna be helping people with rabbits, and they make sure that the rabbits are safe and that everybody knows how to hold a rabbit.

Jeremy Hill 13:26

And they can answer questions about, when people ask. Why is there poop round? Yeah. We try to equip them with all those

Staci Hill 13:33

Why are they behaving this way or, yeah. And they talk a lot about rabbit body language and like how to tell when they're nervous and it's time to leave them alone. And like they'll start scratching their ears and doing different things and they watch for signs that the rabbits are ready for a break and we switch 'em out. 'cause we have. Multiple rabbits so we can just be like, okay, you don't play with people anymore. Here's a new one.

Timmy Eaton 13:52

Yeah.

Staci Hill 13:53

Then we also have piglets and lambs and goats and they know how to know all the things so they can. Talk to people about all of those. And Annie's our pig whisperer she goes out and checks the pigs. Like she can tell when they're about to have babies or make sure that their babies have eaten and she can talk to people about pig development. She trained our pigs last year to sit and stand up beg, like a little dog take treats and all of these other things. She trained these little group of piglets.

Timmy Eaton 14:22

So that, So that's quite a commitment for them, like during this season. They're, it's

Staci Hill 14:25

during the season in the spring it's just weekends, and then in the summer it's five nights a week that we're open. So they have daytime to do other things.

Jeremy Hill 14:32

We only open in the evenings in the summer when it's hot because in southern Missouri and the summer is miserable, so we just open up right before dusk for a couple of hours every day, five days a week.

Staci Hill 14:41

It's hot and humid just oppressive. Yeah. In the daytime. And it's not good for the animals either. Rabbits don't like to be really hot. It gets stressed and they don't wanna be held and the goats will just lay around and be boring in the daytime.

Jeremy Hill 14:54

Yeah. And it's unsafe to be out in the flower field picking flowers in the sun when it's that hot

Staci Hill 14:59

people will pass out. People pass. But after we get to the evening and our barn shades the field and it just turns into a pleasant experience. So

Timmy Eaton 15:08

yes, that

Staci Hill 15:09

in the spring we can be open during the day, but

Timmy Eaton 15:11

and it's like you said, what an education that is just to be a part of that whole process and that whole order of things. When did the book come along and how did you guys decide to do that?

Jeremy Hill 15:19

We have an Instagram page and on that page, it went big a few years ago. Several years ago, because of our pantry. We do a lot of food preservation for our family, and we've built a large pantry out of an old. Dining room. Dining room. Yeah. It was a kind of an odd shaped dining room when we bought this place and we turned it into a food storage pantry. And it's pretty photogenic. There's a chandelier. There's a chandelier. They're exposed beams and it's, we built these heavy duty shelves for all the canned food. And the publisher actually reached out to Stacy and said, I've watched your Instagram content. About gardening, about food preservation. And she said, I think there's a hole in the market that you could fill. If you're willing to write a book. There are lots of gardening books and there are lots of food preservation books, but there aren't books that tell you how to properly grow a garden with the intent of preserving your food. And that's the theme of the book. It's. Not only preserving the food and the how to, and not only the growing the plants and the how to, but it's choosing the right plants, different strategies for growing the plants that lead to the best results of stocking your pantry for the whole year.

Timmy Eaton 16:31

And is it unique to your locale or is it transferable to other places?

Jeremy Hill 16:36

No it's it's intentionally written so that it is not just localized. Some crops are going to be different based on

Timmy Eaton 16:45

Where

Staci Hill 16:46

you live.

Jeremy Hill 16:46

Yeah. Yeah. The amount of sunlight you get the temperatures, the last frost date, that's fresh pressure. Yeah. But we try to use generic terms instead of saying, we plant our potatoes usually around the beginning of April or the end of March. Instead of saying that, we'll say, X days before your first. Prostate or your last prostate. Yeah. So

Timmy Eaton 17:03

you just teach the principle and they have to adapt it to the locale. Yeah,

Jeremy Hill 17:06

sure. Yeah. The idea is that if somebody's really looking to do this, they can brain a little bit into it.

Timmy Eaton 17:13

And how has the response been for the book

Jeremy Hill 17:15

it's been really good. The book has been moving better than we expected. We've gotten a lot of really good feedback. The reviews on Amazon are all positive. Everybody that we've talked to that's looked at the book that went in skeptical, seemed really pleased with it. It's unique and it's hard to put a unique book on the market these days. One of the things that the editor of the book said from the beginning is that they wanted it to be not only informational, but a beautiful picture book. So there are lots of full page color pictures of the different foods of the different plants, but also our kids are in the book because they're helping grow the plants. And a lot of the strategies that we put out there are, get your kids involved. Yeah. Have them help. Not only is it labor because they're going to be eating the food, it helps them, one, learn the value of producing their own food and developing a life skill that they'll have forever, whether they mean to or not, that will stick with them. And two, it helps them really appreciate where the food comes from. They're generally, not always, but they're generally a lot less likely to bring a half a plate of food back and want to throw it away or give it to the pigs because they know the work that went into that food, the meat, the

Staci Hill 18:34

vegetables, they snapped all those green beans and yeah,

Jeremy Hill 18:36

they turned the crank to make the apple sauce. They, they've got sweat into it. Sweat equity into the food they're eating.

Staci Hill 18:43

Our three younger boys can do this by themselves. Like they can process apples and applesauce. They can make tomatoes and to tomato sauce, and they, with the tomatoes, they can go from planting it in the garden all the way to putting it in the canner they've got all those skills,

Timmy Eaton 18:57

and where did this interest come from? Canning and preserving and gardening and.

Jeremy Hill 19:01

Like before it's more Stacy.

Staci Hill 19:03

You say it's more of me, but I didn't grow up with it at all. And he did his grandparents canned and had gardens and

Jeremy Hill 19:09

Yeah. My mom, does some canning still.

Staci Hill 19:12

Yeah. But I I didn't know how to do any of that. And about the time we had our third child, I was like, I'm gonna be someone's grandma someday. I need to know how to pass on skills.

Timmy Eaton 19:22

Yeah.

Staci Hill 19:23

I learned how to bake and cook things from scratch and all of those things. We started milling our own flour at that point, and that is all turned into. Wow. So much. Really? Yeah. So many things. Our oldest daughter took over most of that somewhere after we got the farm animals. And I was like, I don't have time to do this indoor stuff. And she started doing all of our canning and preserving, and she already had her bakery business, so she was doing all of the baking. But now she's in college, so we were okay, we're shifting to other kids. We're transitioning again. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 19:56

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Jeremy Hill 21:35

They're all very different. Our oldest, she's been very into the animals. For a while she said she wanted to be a midwife and she wanted to be a vet. And most of 'em have gone through the vet stage be 'cause of all of our animals. She moved beyond that. Yeah, she's moved beyond that now. She really likes the food. Production. Her major in college right now is hospitality management, so restaurant management, things like that. But she'll get out there when a goat's in labor and pull the goat and, get her hands dirty.

Staci Hill 22:03

All the things. Yeah.

Jeremy Hill 22:03

Annie is our soft hearted one. She loves all the animals dearly. A lot of tears get shed when things don't go well, but she has probably the biggest heart and the biggest love for the animals. So it was really neat when we started doing this as a business for her to get in front of people and teach them about animals and share that love with the public, because she was our most. By far, she

Staci Hill 22:31

being around the animals completely changed her

Jeremy Hill 22:34

100%

Staci Hill 22:35

personally. Like she was shy and like really anxious and scared of people and she's that just completely went away. Not with the exposure to the people, but with the animals,

Timmy Eaton 22:44

the passion for the animals. And then, having an audience to be able to actually share that passion and explain it.

Jeremy Hill 22:49

And now she's super outgoing and it's been a really neat transition to see and Jamie, our oldest son is. Going on 18 now, and he's a lot like me at that age. He does the work, but he's not really into the farm stuff as much. I grew up on a farm and by the time I turned 18, I was ready to go and. It was in the nineties, at the beginning of the internet, and I wanted to be of his technology and computers. And

Staci Hill 23:16

he's

Jeremy Hill 23:17

just like that. That's, he's just like that.

Staci Hill 23:18

So he's not really interested in the farm stuff, but he will help.

Jeremy Hill 23:21

We try to channel that and have him do, different things that keep his interest up, but also.

Staci Hill 23:28

He doesn't want people either.

Jeremy Hill 23:30

Yeah. He's not a big people person.

Staci Hill 23:32

I was like, alright, you put in, he did it and now he decided he didn't like it. I'm like, okay,

Jeremy Hill 23:36

you tried. At least he tried. And then our youngest three boys, we view them as one package deal, but they're like a little gang. They're the three amigos. They run around the farm and they're inseparable.

Staci Hill 23:45

They're the ones that don't remember not living here.

Jeremy Hill 23:48

And it shows

Staci Hill 23:48

and yeah, it definitely shows. The youngest never, didn't live here. And then the middle of the three of them was one when we moved here, so he doesn't remember either. And the other one was three when we got here. But they are,

Jeremy Hill 24:00

they're farm kids.

Staci Hill 24:01

They're all farm kids.

Jeremy Hill 24:02

Oh, that's awesome. They're, we're really starting to get them more involved with the people. And Yeah, develop

Staci Hill 24:07

those skills. Yeah. They've done it on and off since they were, toddlers, but they

Jeremy Hill 24:11

were formalizing it more this year.

Staci Hill 24:13

Yeah, this year. It's fine. They did a lemonade stand last year on their own, where they squeeze the lemons, made the lemonade made lemonade concentrate so that when people were here, they could set up a lemonade stand and they were seeing the. The wheels are turning on the, oh, we can make money. This is pretty cool.

Timmy Eaton 24:29

That's what I mean, when you actually experience it and taste that, you discover who your entrepreneurs are because Yeah. Yeah. Some have that flare.

Jeremy Hill 24:37

Yeah, it was neat. After the first night they set up and had a really good night af at the end of the night, they came to me with a wad of $1 bills and said, here's your share. This covers the cost of the cups and the lemons. And we talked through all that so they understood margins and profit loss and all that stuff. So that was. Validating.

Timmy Eaton 24:56

So what about a common obviously misconception or preconception about homeschool families is the concern for friends and socializing and that kind of thing. A lot of it's pretty lame at this point, and I think a little old school but some of it is valid in your situation when it's they're working quite a bit too. At different stages. How do you respond to people when they say, Hey, how are they making friends and how are they developing friendships and that kind of thing? What do you tell

Jeremy Hill 25:19

people? I usually roll my eyes.

Timmy Eaton 25:21

I know

Jeremy Hill 25:22

the word socialization. I have to really

Timmy Eaton 25:24

control. No, I do too. That's why I prefaced it that way. Yeah, and I think it's getting better and better

Staci Hill 25:28

mean they have each other, which is a lot. There clearly is a dynamic there, and they interact with other people, so usually people don't like. Question it once they've met the kids. 'cause they're like, oh, they are clearly fine.

Jeremy Hill 25:42

Yeah. And like we said earlier, some people will come out and say, wow, I'm surprised they were homeschooled it'll flip and say, oh, I could tell they were homeschooled because they're so well-mannered and either way I can tell it's not meant to be an insult, but it's like. Really?

Timmy Eaton 25:56

Yeah. Okay. I know that's funny

Jeremy Hill 25:59

But as you probably know with six kids and yours are a little closer in age than ours. We've got a, 13 year spread between oldest and youngest. They're friends with each other and that helps a lot. Not that we don't see other people.

Staci Hill 26:12

Yeah.

Jeremy Hill 26:12

Before,

Staci Hill 26:13

and we have other family living on our

Jeremy Hill 26:15

Yeah.

Staci Hill 26:15

Farm too, or my cousins and my aunt and my parents all live. Like right here.

Timmy Eaton 26:21

It's fairly common among homeschool families that, we actually prefer that our children are family oriented. Compared to being peer oriented although we definitely wanna foster those relationships, but yeah. I think that's a thing that people are attracted to, but they can't put their finger on it when they haven't done the research the same people that are complaining about their kids being too connected emotionally or through devices or whatever. That appeals to 'em about homeschooling, but then they say, how crazy would it be to homeschool your kids? But I feel like that's changing, What about for your oldest daughter, like she's now in school. Did she get a diploma? We've had three kids in university and actually our 16, almost 17-year-old is also doing dual credit through the university. And people don't realize that there's a lot of ways to do this. And none of our kids have gotten a diploma. So what was her route and how did this situation of the home prepare her for post-secondary

Staci Hill 27:14

for Missouri? How it works here in our state is I wrote her transcript and. And printed a diploma here you go, you graduated. And that's what she turns in to apply for college. And she, got in, got a scholarship for scholarships, her grades and she's been doing really well, which is. It's been very validating. Yes. It's just her second semester now and she is like on and off as to whether or not it's all worth it when she already has its own business. And she's like, why am I doing this? She wanted to do it, so I'm like you're there 'cause you wanted to be she,

Timmy Eaton 27:46

no, it's true. But more and more people are wondering like, is this even right? How necessary, is it worth it? I think it's like you, you view it as a means to your ends, use it for you. And so if college is going to help you and bless your future, by all means, but if you're already. You know, Have the education.

Staci Hill 28:03

That's the conversation. It's not a box to tick we've been having with her is 'cause she's I don't know if I wanna spend three more years doing this. So she goes back and forth from like, how fast can I graduate to do I really need to graduate? And I'm like, it's up to you. Like you make this decision. And she's still working through all of that. But besides the business stuff, like everything we do for homeschool is not, very traditional, like we are not right structured. We're not following a specific curriculum. We're just putting pieces together. And the other thing that I did the whole way through with all of them, but mean it started with her obviously, is I don't like tests. And they, everything that goes along with that. She'd never had a test, she'd never been forced to write a specific thing. She did her own things and I'm like, okay, like I see progress. This is good. Move on. So then she gets to school and you would think that would blow everything up. And it's been fine. Yeah, she struggled just a little bit in the first semester with some timed tests, but that was her like. Other issues. That was like a more of an a DH ADHD thing that we figured out. Yeah. Which had never been an issue.

Jeremy Hill 29:06

Yeah.

Staci Hill 29:07

But then she

Jeremy Hill 29:07

could take the same test without a timer

Staci Hill 29:09

and do grade at it. She got some accommodations from the school for possible whatever, and they're, she's this is so stupid, why do I have to do this? But then, so she could, get a hundred percent on all these quizzes as soon as they took the timer off. I'm like, everybody has issues like that, so it's, yeah, like totally. It's not the homeschooling.

Timmy Eaton 29:25

And even like you said in the state of Missouri, some people get concerned, but some people hearing that are like, man, are you telling me that I went through all this schooling stuff and all of it was kind of unnecessary? Because I went to, public school you know, history and experience myself, but it's been so eyeopening for us to have experiences through our children and to see that there's such a variety of ways to do that. And when I tell people, I'm like, yeah, you could basically stop wherever you are at any point in your education and it's still gonna be fine regarding post-secondary. What I always tell people is begin with the end in mind. Which is a common saying, but like the idea that like if you wanna go to a certain university or you wanna go to a certain program in that university, turns out that you can just make phone calls and talk to people. And they actually just accommodate you most times. And if they don't, then you look somewhere else.

Jeremy Hill 30:10

Exactly. I love the start with the end in mind. And the other one that I always fall back to is start with why why do you want to do this? Why do you want to go to college? I need a agreed because this, okay, great. Are. Third child, Annie, the one with the

Timmy Eaton 30:27

animals.

Jeremy Hill 30:27

Animals she talked about vet tech. She's talked about, all these different things to do with animals, and none of that's gonna require going to a four year school. For what she is wanting to do.

Timmy Eaton 30:39

Exactly.

Jeremy Hill 30:40

Okay.

Staci Hill 30:40

Yeah,

Jeremy Hill 30:41

It's like the way, we were taught in public school, any kid that's our age roughly, don't mean to box you in here, but

Timmy Eaton 30:47

19 96, that's when I graduated.

Jeremy Hill 30:49

Yeah, you're right Between us. Yeah. 94 and 98. So there you go. But any kid our age can tell you that in 1,492 Columbus sail the ocean blue. But why, what was the reason, so we try to take that why into everything. It's not just memorizing dates, it's not just you're gonna go to college because the school counselor said so it's

Staci Hill 31:10

Right.

Jeremy Hill 31:10

What, what's,

Staci Hill 31:10

what do you want to do?

Jeremy Hill 31:11

Yeah. Why are you doing it?

Staci Hill 31:13

Our oldest did not wanna go to college. So all of the stuff we did in high school was to prepare her. Her business. Yeah. Because she didn't wanna do this but just to be able to pivot like that and do college anyway. And it'd be fine. And she's doing well. Yeah. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 31:26

And so as far as curriculum, I'm gathering, and you correct me if I'm wrong, curricula wasn't like a point of high stress. No. And what about read alouds? Do you guys do anything like that as a family?

Staci Hill 31:36

Not really at this point. The kids read to each other, which has been happening for the last decade or so. Yeah. To the point where I'm like, all right, I'm working. You're doing that. And

Jeremy Hill 31:46

there, there are mutual benefits to that, right? Other than, not that we don't read to them, them reading to each other has benefits. Totally. Yeah. Almost like a read aloud, like you said.

Timmy Eaton 31:55

No, there is like the one thing I was thinking about too in your guys' situation, 'cause it is unique where you're basically. Home, Jeremy. And so what does that introduce as far as like roles, and again, everyone's gonna approach how they do homeschool or how they do learning as a family at home. But how do you distinguish roles as far as mom and dad's role in homeschooling and, what's the dad's role, what's mom's role?

Staci Hill 32:17

Yeah. Overall, as broadly here, we're a little bit weird because. When you just go back to like basic roles, I am growing things outside a lot and working on my own or with the kids. The kids help me a lot, but

Timmy Eaton 32:32

Right.

Staci Hill 32:33

But like managing that side and he's doing all of the cooking and making sure things are running smoothly in here, but we don't do a ton of sit down work like, but beyond. Making sure that they're reading and writing and very basic stuff. It's not a big part of our day.

Timmy Eaton 32:51

Yeah.

Staci Hill 32:51

We're talking through these things as we are going, or like math is a little, doubling a recipe or,

Jeremy Hill 32:57

yeah. We spend a lot of time just watching and listening to them as an individual about what they're interested in right now all three of the little ones, especially the youngest, really into coins. Counting them, sorting them, collecting them, okay,

Staci Hill 33:13

we

Jeremy Hill 33:13

going to

Staci Hill 33:14

the library, we gotta leave

Jeremy Hill 33:16

books about coins. We're getting books about coins, but we're incorporating counting and. Multiplication and the math side

Staci Hill 33:21

and history,

Jeremy Hill 33:22

so

Staci Hill 33:22

much history.

Jeremy Hill 33:23

And they don't even realize that

Timmy Eaton 33:25

How much interdisciplinary studies are happening through

Staci Hill 33:27

that.

Jeremy Hill 33:28

Yeah. They learn so much more when they don't think

Staci Hill 33:30

they're learning. And the one before that, their interest before that was all rocks and minerals. So we went through all of that until they got tired of rocks. But that was like a year of. Of all the things involved with geology and how it's different in different places and just so many rocks. The driveway grapple.

Timmy Eaton 33:45

A common question I ask families and especially couples and like I do a lot with homeschool dads. I have a course called the Proactive Homeschool Dad, PhD and I ask them a lot. I say, you know what does the dad do to help the mom replenish and fill her bucket 'cause it's. Taxing to be a homeschool mother and depending on how people do it, but I your guys' situation seems like a lot more fluid and just like real life and Yeah.

Jeremy Hill 34:05

It's very fluid. The big thing is we lean into each other's strengths and Yeah. It's very seasonal driven. Yeah. Seasonally driven here.

Staci Hill 34:12

We're doing more indoor stuff, more book learning and sit down stuff and things on the computers where in the like march through October, the kids are more like our shadows.

Timmy Eaton 34:24

Yes.

Staci Hill 34:24

And we're having these conversations out loud all the time. And they will tell you that they don't do school. They, because they think school is when they have to sit down at the table.

Timmy Eaton 34:32

Exactly.

Staci Hill 34:32

And they'll be like, I haven't done that in months. I'm like, don't

Timmy Eaton 34:35

tell people

Jeremy Hill 34:35

that. No. We have to be really careful. Okay.

Timmy Eaton 34:36

I know. Even as homeschool families. We'll say, Hey, did you finish your school? Did I finish my school

Staci Hill 34:43

Far away from that with our current lifestyle? But like the other day, our 10 year olds came in the house specifically to sit down and write his garden plan for this year. And he was asking me how to spell all the words, and he was making sure he had it all right. Drew a map of his garden. It completely had

Timmy Eaton 34:58

his 10 school lessons right there. Yeah. I'm just thinking like words matter and I'm wondering if we ought to be more deliberate about have you completed these tasks or something like that.

Staci Hill 35:06

Think they start thinking like they're being punished

Timmy Eaton 35:08

because that's, yeah, I know.

Staci Hill 35:09

Fun part of. Of everything we do.

Timmy Eaton 35:12

So I imagine that your buckets are being filled by what you're doing. Like the work is fulfilling. And so do you do things where you make sure you get away or do is it exercise? Is it getting out with friends? What do you look forward to and motivated as homeschool parents who have a big family

Jeremy Hill 35:26

winter? Yeah. Our down season, our down season is

Staci Hill 35:29

winter, so

Jeremy Hill 35:30

like every day at sunset, when we get off this call we go for a walk, just the two of us. We go walk about a mile and a half or two miles just around the farm. We don't do it every day, obviously. And in the summer we don't get to do it because we're open until dust, until

Staci Hill 35:42

it gets dark and

Jeremy Hill 35:43

yeah. But that's our US time. Yeah. And then we do take a family trip, try to we've just started doing this the last two years at the end of the year at the end of our season, which is, usually in November,

Timmy Eaton 35:56

November, October, November. Yeah.

Jeremy Hill 35:57

Yeah, so we, we will take a family trip and last year we went to North Carolina up in the Smoky Mountains and love it. At that time we brought back so many rocks because that's what they were really into. Geology, lesson on wheels.

Timmy Eaton 36:11

Yeah. So what about extracurricular, like how does that work for your kids? Like sports, music, karate? We don't

Staci Hill 36:17

do any of that.

Jeremy Hill 36:18

Nope, not

Staci Hill 36:18

really. We used to, like in the, when we didn't have the. Farm and whatever else we did, they did some music and none of the other stuff. I've always been like, I'm not doing the sports thing. Unless there's some

Jeremy Hill 36:28

unless they just really

Staci Hill 36:29

show that they just have to, and none of them have been like that interested in it. I'm like, I'm not doing that. It's too much. Time commitments,

Jeremy Hill 36:36

might

Staci Hill 36:36

be, it

Jeremy Hill 36:37

might be an

Staci Hill 36:37

unpopular it's weird with dinner, it's just,

Jeremy Hill 36:40

yeah. It might be an unpopular thing to say, but I think a lot of people's. Involvement with kids sports is

Timmy Eaton 36:48

crazy.

Jeremy Hill 36:49

That too. I was going to say something more along the lines of maybe a little misplaced what's the word I'm looking for? Priority. Projection of what they wanted to do. Oh, I see.

Timmy Eaton 36:58

Yeah.

Jeremy Hill 36:58

So is it really about the kids or is this because you really thought you were gonna be a major league baseball star and didn't now your kids in totally. All the traveling baseball leagues? Not all. I know it's not always the

Timmy Eaton 37:08

case, but No, I know. And it's region to region. It's. Especially being in Canada, it's not as crazy. But we have chosen to be a sports family. But yeah, we have said so much if we could go back, I think we would adjust quite a bit of those decisions.

Jeremy Hill 37:20

And if they have an aptitude or if they have a desire that they're really into one of our kids she's gonna be an amazing artist. She already is. She blows me away. And,

Staci Hill 37:29

So this year. For, or this past year for her school, I told her she could be an art school.

Jeremy Hill 37:34

Cool.

Staci Hill 37:34

All of everything. She's in her own little magnet school in her room. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 37:37

Yeah.

Staci Hill 37:37

And she's learning all these things and I'm like, it's,

Timmy Eaton 37:40

And there's so many good online programs. If one wants to take interest in that. And the other thing is like with a business, you can employ that learning and skills into your business. One thing I just wanted to wrap up with, if you guys are cool, it's been such a fun conversation, and I do wanna just make sure we give a one or two more plugs into your book, the Preservers Garden, and also just encourage people to go to gooseberry bridge.com and learn more about their business. But what do you tell people when they're considering home education? When you talk to people in your community or whatever, family members. When they're wanting to do it. What counsel do you give newer families?

Staci Hill 38:14

It's really just the same thing we tell people who wanna grow their own food is that you can do this. Just do it and they're your kids. You know your kids' best, like you're gonna do a better job than anybody else. And. Don't compare yourself to what you think it should look like. Like it's not school at home. That's the main thing I keep telling people. Yeah.

Jeremy Hill 38:34

It's not, don't, it

Staci Hill 38:35

doesn't have

Jeremy Hill 38:35

to be go buy all the textbooks and do all that. It doesn't have to be that

Staci Hill 38:38

you don't need a classroom. You don't need to.

Jeremy Hill 38:40

It can

Staci Hill 38:41

be sit there for six hours a day and. Just,

Jeremy Hill 38:45

I guess the thing I would add to that would be the same thing I said earlier, and that's start with why.

Staci Hill 38:48

Yeah,

Jeremy Hill 38:49

Why do you want to do that? What is your why for wanting to homeschool? Is it the time with the kids? Is it that you want to control what they're learning? Is it something else? So you know your why of why you want to do it matters, and that will influence how you do it.

Timmy Eaton 39:04

Excellent. Such good words. I really appreciate you guys taking time today and hopefully we can get together some other time and good luck with everything this coming season and thank you for being with me today.

Jeremy Hill 39:13

Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 39:15

This is Stacy and Jeremy Hill, everybody from Missouri. Thanks again you guys. Well, that wraps up another edition of this Golden Hour podcast. Thanks for hanging out for the entire episode. Make sure you check out our website@thisgoldenhour.org where you can find our podcast archives and you can register for the free web class I do to help homeschool dads every Thursday at 6:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, and you homeschool dads can also sign up for the Proactive Homeschool Dad or PhD course on the website. If you haven't done so already, please take a minute and give us a review. An Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you very much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.