The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Phoenix Survival: A Fungus Among Us

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

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You're listening to PBN. Your path back the stability here. Good morning, PBN. How are you? I am double checking to make sure I have sounds because it seems to never fill with these systems, especially with my screen doing something weird. I'm making sure I have sound before I do anything else. My screen.

Yep, there we go. Okay. Good morning. I know. On Sundays, we know it's a day late and a dollar short. But for a very good reason, too. I actually took a mushroom purse yesterday. It was absolutely amazing. And I managed to leave the book that I meant to bring in here. Let me see if I can get him to bring me the book. It never seems to feel always. Good morning. Morning, text dad. How are you? And yes, I can see you're from X. Phenomenal. Thank you for saying hi. It is always a bit of a pain when my biggest area that normally speaks is Instagram or YouTube, but since we've been imploded on YouTube, it is now Instagram, X, and Rumble. Let's see. If you're not following me on Instagram, it's Phoenix underscore Survival.

So feel free to hit me up, hit a save. So in this picture, you know, AI did what it could with sandrails. It looks like it tried to combine the chantrails right here on this log in front. Across the log by the lines main, looks like it's supposed to be golden oysters. So it did get the ones I wanted in there for right now. But I have been going down this big journey of edible. mushrooms or fungi. Hold on. This book. You had it with you. I did. Okay. With your notebook. Huh. Well, it's not over here.

Go figure. You had them both in your hands. I thought so. See, folks, I am losing my mind because I have my notes, but my book did not make it. You had your book first, and then you and you had them both in your hand when you walked away. And they weren't sitting right there? No. Oh, oh, no. Well, say la Vie, right? And it's not on the chair or the table? Oh, I know where it is.

By the incubators. See? I am everywhere. Give me a second to get myself back together. I think you text-dad, though. I hope everything's going good for you over there. Let me. What? It's going to be on the bed.

Slightly to the right on top of the colorful fabric. I may have to go to a commercial break. This is right off the rip. Just so I can get this book because I really want to talk more about it, but I want to show this book. No? Okay. So shit.

All right. And then let me do a quick commercial. Let me let you stare at these pretty mushrooms while I grab that book because I am apparently losing my mind. So let's do some great ones on here. I say that. My entire system has been doing very funny for me as of late on trying to get things to to load, trying to get things to change over. Yep. I'm gonna go to, who?

See that. Oh, y'all, I am definitely fluffing it up today and you were stuck with me. If you choose to go, that sucks, but I understand. So you know what, let me do this. I am going to grab this. this audio right here. And then I'm going to play that.

And I shall be right back. Okay? Let me one moment. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. Present your vaccine passport. Enter your social credit score. And be sure you have enough remaining carbon credits to enjoy today's show.

Your garden is the third. resistance. Hello, welcome to the podcast. Present your vaccine passport. Enter your social credit score, and be sure you have enough remaining carbon credits to enjoy today's show. Your garden is the resistance. Hello, welcome to the podcast. Present your vaccine passport. Okay, folks. Enter your social card. Didn't realize it was going to go on replay. My apologies.

I am back. Let me see if I can get myself back on the screen. Phenomenal. Okay, perfect. So, other than that little hiccup, I did find the book. It is phenomenal. I actually yesterday signed up. I found it.

It popped up on my social media. I have done an online course with these individuals once before, just to really get a feel for it. Let me see. So if you look up, I'm trying to find my link for them. Actually, if you go on any Facebook or Instagram, you can find The Forest Pharmacy, and that's F-O-R-E-S-T, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y. They're amazing.

Catherine and Christopher Parker, where the individuals who, Mr. Christopher Parker, has been growing mushrooms since he was a kid, found a way to make a living off of it, and has just been flourishing from there. I've been wanting to learn more and more about mushrooms. We had a guest on who spoke about foraging mushrooms, and yes, I'm still very, very new at foraging and still not 100% steady-footed when it comes to foraging myself. But we do, enjoy mushrooms immensely in this household. So a big one for us is being able to grow our own mushrooms. I have plenty of friends who do it. It seems like it's not too hard in some areas and a little more complicated in others. And actually, this course on a beginner's for growing regenerative

mushrooms was absolutely amazing. I left with a notebook like nine, pages full of notes because there was just so much information. It was hands-on. I actually do plan on having Mr. Christopher and Ms. Catherine on as a guest. So I'm not sure. Doubt it'll be next weekend because it is the fourth weekend. I'm going to be off other than maybe popping in to say, happy 4th of July, just because there are plenty of things to do here on the homestead. But I did get their book, good Lord, it's going to cut it out, the mycelio healer by Christopher Parker and Catherine Parker, PhD, a comprehensive guide to cultivation, traditional uses of medicinal mushrooms. Now, they didn't go over that per se on the medicinal part. There's a lot of great information

because mushrooms, as we know, can be used as well as other plants for medicinal purposes. Certain ones are great in broths, especially if you're ill. But the wonderful thing in there is it explains outdoor cultivations, indoor cultivation, sterile lab techniques, the world according to fungi. I mean, it is an amazing book. I would recommend, especially if you're not able to do a course, which they do offer an entire year-long, or I believe it's a book. a year-long program for learning everything from sterile lab setup.

They send you liquid cultures, different types of setups to be able to grow from your own home. So it's a lot more in depth than the class I took. And the class I took was from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at a location with 21, 22, other individuals taking the course. So if you're not in the part of Western North Carolina, it was a good little drive from me. We actually have people driving from a different state to there, which was phenomenal. You know, you can do it online. They don't necessarily make you have to do it in person, which is great for those of you who want to learn, especially in this region,

finding a class that helps me understand the environment here is phenomenal. I left with a piece of a tree or a log with we did plugs, inoculated it with plugs. I learned the wood chip method with wine caps or strafera. So I'm looking forward to that and putting it out once we start to see the mycelium develop more. I can then put that spawn in multiple areas with more wood chips and have it grown in my garden. We also did spore prints to find out how easy it is to do it. Now, not every mushroom likes the same environment or likes the same technique, and that's absolutely fine.

But learning that and finding out which ones are going to do great outside here was phenomenal for me. More in depth, being able to ask questions, being able to do hands-on, finding out all the different methods of being able to grow mushrooms or start them out to create spawn was phenomenal. So these people are amazing. And if you are not sure and you don't know where to start, look at the book. If you don't want to do a class, the book is amazing. It, full of information, full of additional information that wasn't even in the class.

But everything, just about everything that was in the class, I believe, is here in the book. I saw a few things that were mentioned that were in here right off the rip. But being able to see, being able to learn how to pasteurize straw. And yes, I can watch plenty of videos. I can read plenty of articles, but having a hands-on practice was, phenomenal for me. Being able to do that and then just to see where things are going to go with mycelium, it's phenomenal. My partner, of course, was tickled pink because I'm coming home, just vibrating with so much excitement over it. Seems silly, but we also did a grow bag with

straw. So we, well, he pasteurized the straw, took us through it, inoculated it, you know, talked us through what needs to be. to be done as far as temperature and everything else. We put those together, and now it's a sit and wait. The logs, we won't see anything from it until next spring. That's perfectly fine. We will see the bag should be ready to be, should start colonizing by the end of July, so y'all should be able to see about some mushrooms then from us.

And then as far as the other ones, I don't know. I mean, I haven't written down on timeframes. Some of them, we will see colonization and fruit. You know, the mushroom part is the fruit produced from them sooner. And some of them, we won't see anything for a few months, if not until early spring. And that's okay. But being able to try these different techniques to see what's going to work where and what's going to work best is a amazing. And the different techniques for inoculate and logs and fall in or fell trees when we go to

film and what type of trees is best to use and what type of wood, I'm, I'm absolutely elated. But on top of that, on top of everything else, because I could talk to you all day about that class, but I'm going to hold that for when I have Mr. Christopher and Ms. Catherine, Mr. and Mrs. Parker on, because it was a phenomenal class. And once you meet these two, they are the sweetest people in the world, too. And so it's great. We have turkeys.

We had four hatch. I did not think one of them was going to make it. I did manually get them to drink water and eat. And I gave them overnight because the first day, they weren't really moving. Didn't look very encouraging. second day didn't look much better. By the third day,

they actually perked up. So I have four semi or relatively from visual, healthy turkeys that are running around in their little tote. Out of the five eggs in my incubator when I checked, it looks like I only have two

that are viable, which is okay. Sometimes you get great numbers and sometimes you don't. And so if I can have five to you know, four to six turkeys, that's fine. We did have an animal get to two of our ducks, so we went from eight to two, I mean, eight to four.

No, eight to six, Lord have mercy, math is not my strong suit right now, which is funny. So we believe it was a fox. One duck is just completely gone, the other one was left dead, and there was, is blood left on the side of the cage. We had to reinforce that, lock it down even better, no issues now. We are in the process of building down a different area so we can get the ducks move to a larger spance to be able to run around on because they are now much bigger than they were when we first got them. And I have 36 eggs in my incubator, and I realized one of the trays that has been given me issues may give me issues with a whole line of eggs.

So now I'm trying to navigate how I'm going to handle that because I have two incubators. I only have two and both of them are in use and I have a whole line of eggs that may not produce, which is fine. I have 36 chicken eggs in that bigger incubator. And that's only because not all the eggs are going to be viable. Not all of them are going to have been fertilized. And that's just a part of it. Sometimes we don't get, I had to explain to my mother,

who doesn't know anything about raisin chickens or incubation or anything that goes along with the homestead and lifestyle, or any kind of farm and lifestyle, that I put a large quantity of eggs in my incubator because I expect a certain number not to be incubated, not to be viable. So, for example, put in 36 and 10 of them aren't viable. Okay, there's 25 left. Well, out of that 25, some of them may not develop fully. And then I may only have so many left, a plus on top of the chicks that do survive. some of them just perish.

And that's a part of it. So I'd rather have a large quantity of eggs and hatch as many as I can and hopefully get as many as I can to adulthood or lay in age because several, actually half my flock is much older hens. And their land production is going to start becoming less and less. and over time, I need to be able to make sure that I can continue to produce eggs, that I can continue to have a flop who's going to grow, because as my girls get older, I will actually call, I will put them in the freezer

because that is a part of the lifestyle. is you make sure that you have food in at one cycle or another. So too many roosters, they go into the freezer. I have two main roosters. I have two more roosters. I do need to call. I had every intentions of doing it this weekend. It's a good thing I didn't because we had a bunch of rain,

even during the class, that did not stop us. And today it is supposed to rain all day long. So I'd rather not process in the rain. And it may not be next weekend. We'll see. It just depends on how I'm feeling. So for now, the two older roosters get to live just a little bit longer. My two younger roosters are doing great.

There's no issues. There's no fighting. And as I said, if you have too many roosters, they get cold, they get processed, they get put in your freezer because that's food for your family. these older hens as they drop on production, they will too be removed and put in the deep freezer for my family. I also do the same with very aggressive hens. I've done it with very aggressive roosters. I don't want to have to go in,

go into the coop or into the run and then be attacked because there's too much aggression from one bird. Had it happened, I easily remedied that. Now we don't have that problem, and he's waiting to be cooked. So there's no reason to keep an aggressive bird. I did recently also help a friend with her chicken that had bumblefoot. It is something you have to keep out for if you see your chicken limping,

and it will look like a giant blackhead in their foot or a scab. And what you have to do is you have to soak it for about 15 to 20 minutes in Epson salt, you do have to remove that scaly scab off. And if it is big and you can't remove, you have to, I had to put it out in essence. I was able to move around the side and it came out the whole core. Banix actually worked really well on it. We put Banix. Sebastian Trace and her knee is born. It is safe to be able to use on the chicken, put gauze, wrapped it with an a spandage or for my other folks who know vet wrap. And I left that on for two days.

I don't know, left that on for a day, took it off to check it, and then checked it, retreated it, rewrapped it, re-wrapped it. We left it on. So today I will come back and I will go back over and take the damage it off, see how it's healing. If it doesn't look like it's still open in any way. we will lead the bandit chin off and then check there was a small case of bumble foot on the toe of the other foot, bin banics and that as well, because it was so early. Sometimes you can you can treat it,

but still need to be aware. I didn't want to cause too much trauma on her since she had one on each foot, so she could still walk. So, so far, so good. So after this, that's going to be my next step is check in how she's doing and then going from there. So it is one of those things you do need keep an eye on. Bumblefoot is a type of like staff infection from I've heard different people say it's not contagious other ones say it is. I always treat it like it is, especially if you're going to create wound trying to remove it. It's usually best dependent upon the temperament of your birds to remove that bird that you cut the infection out of to let her heal and keep her quarantined to check your flock. So it's it's one of those things that that's where we're at.

I'm at a point of re-diatomation, earth and everything, especially with all the rain. But it just goes to show a good work in homestead is a constant homestead. For us, there's not very many down days. I was speaking to someone who said that they love their little piece of heaven, but hate the thought of all the additional things that they have to get done. and I said, don't think of it as a task. Think of it as, you know, like I said, a good working homestead always has things. That means you're growing. That means things are constantly in motion or are working or you've used something to the point that it needs more attendance. That doesn't mean it's a bad

homestead. It just means you've got things going continually. And truthfully, homesteaden is great for us ADHD years. I have to have 12 projects going on at once, or I am going to go stir crazy. It's a rainy day. So I'm working on crochet chicken bags and my coin purses. Still working, figuring this one out. But I will get there, okay?

But that's the whole thing. It's having fun with it. I enjoy, like, yes, there are days. I'm just like, are you kidding me? And other days, I'm ready and I'm going. Am I running into issues right now with the containers? Absolutely. Am I getting a little discouraged at times?

Yes, but I'm not giving up. And there's no point in giving up. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to continue to grow as much as I can for my family to provide what I can for my family. Does it look like I'm going to get a big harvest this year If any, probably not. If I can get most of my plants to go to flour and to go to seed,

then I'm perfectly okay with that. I've mentioned it before. My wasabi is starting to seed. That's a goal for me to keep the seed from my wasabi. My lettuce has already bolted. Actually, it's been bolted. It bolted very quick once we had that little heat wave. So I'm collecting seed as it comes about.

putting it up so I have lettuce for next year. Sometimes, actually, last year, I let it bolt and reseated itself in the container and I've been harvesting lettuce from that same container with no problems. Not usually ideal.

It's not something you see typically happen with lettuce, but I've been letting it reseed itself in its own area. And it's kind of been a nice favorite to not have to worry about it. Strawberries, I've got plenty of actual big strawberries growing down in one of my garden areas on its own because it used to be a

pin paddock. So it's doing a pig paddock. It's doing great. And so I can pick strawberries down there when I pick my blackberries or dewberries. Not been picking any more blackberries or dewberries because I'm actually at a point where I have plenty. I am now getting other things built and set up and on top of work in full time. So it is learning to manage and complete as much as time as much as we can in a certain time frame. So early mornings, get up, tend to the animals, check the gardens, go to work. In the evening, if I have time, go out, recheck the animals, recheck the gardens, so on and so forth. It is just the way of it. You have to find a make your own balance for everything you're doing. Right now with the mycelium, with the spores and all

the inoculations we did, it's a sit and wait. So those are put to a cool, dark place where, well, they can be in a humid place. That's not a problem. But they're in a place where they don't get any direct sunlight and the temperature maintains and off in another room. Don't have to think about it for a few weeks to a month, and then I'll check them, and then we'll go from there. The log is in the shade. It's got to sit off the ground for about two to three months. I've got to make sure it gets wet in the rain, or every once every two weeks, I have to make sure I saturate it. And then after that, I put it in the woods, vertical, let it do what it will. And then we'll see what happens. Keep an eye on my instillade.

If you're following me on there, I will be taking pictures and posting. I will be trying to log the little journey. No pun intended. But it will be, it'll be fun to see where it goes. I have to take some pictures of the four chicks that are now doing very well. They are extra spicy. If I go to put my fingers down in the tote to get to the food or the water, I have two that like to come up and come after my finger and we'll start pecking at it.

So those could be tombs. But either way, I'm just happy to have a growing flock on my homestead to where there are more food options. And eventually, hopefully soon, once we get things finished, we'll have our meat rabbits. And then that will be another food option. So we are growing. It is slow and steady, but we are doing it. And hopefully, that will get us one more step to be a little more self-sufficient, not saying that we don't still go get meat from the store or from the local farmer.

But it'd be nice to have it set up for at some point where we can rely on ourselves more and less on the mass production. I actually enjoy when I go to farmers markets. I prefer to try to get my produce from markets that I know sell directly between the wholesaler to them. There's no middleman or from the farm to them, no wholesaler. And then to the public, which I appreciate because that means it cuts out all this extra steps. He knows how everything's taking care from those farmers. Or I try to purchase locally from local farmers.

So that is actually a great thing to try to help our own community. I want to grow our own community and finding out that I can take these mushrooms if I'm able to grow them and actually sell them. And with the state laws, it's actually very reasonable for this area. So I could do that. And that's a part of it. You can learn how to do a regenerative farm through Christopher and Catherine Parker. And that just goes to show there are, options and ways of being able to make a living. How awesome would it be to be able to go to your local farmer's market and you see some Phoenix mushrooms, right? That's awesome. Big one for us, though, not looking into selling right away, is to looking into what I can do for my family, how I can feed us. And we enjoy mushrooms. I dehydrate a lot of mushrooms that I use for when I'm cooking steak or chicken or making stocks or even when I did my three-day fast, I took some mushrooms and I bowled it up in some water and I used that for my base and my teas with some of the other stuff

just to give it a little more. And it was amazing. So there are options. You know, the sky's the limit for producing on our homestead for food, producing fungi or edible mushrooms, and being able to produce meat. These are all things that we're looking at. Oh, and Garden Girl. I know you're not on right now, but when you hear this, my lufa are taken off.

They are vining nicely. No fruit yet, but we'll see. I'm hoping to get at least a couple so I can dry them out and then take the seeds and replan them next year. Fingers crossed.

But that is our big thing. My goal now is to get my plants to a point where they start seeding. And then I can repeat rents and repeat. And next year, with the things that we're going to have completed in the next couple weeks, my garden should be fully ready and operational to have things in the ground versus in pots. But that's the way of life. Sometimes we have hiccups and we have to adjust, you know, adapt and overcome. It's just a way of it.

And so I'm absolutely excited to later be showing your pictures of how things get set up. My garden bed, my raised bed with the fell logs, it's not the prettiest. But I think it is because I like it. It worked out the way I wanted. We took all of the old trees that were fell from Helene and cut them up. And yes, they're not even. It's driving my Christopher, absolutely insane because you want some flush. And I like that they're stair-stipped and wobbly looking, even though it's been, there's been a board put to make sure to hold it firm. So nothing's going to fall.

But I enjoy how it looks. I like a little chaos. I like that it looks like that it looks like nothing is perfectly symmetrical. I'm okay with that. And so I'm looking forward to even more of next year of taking that garden and growing it into something else. I'm looking forward into taking the wood chips and having them put in different places. And maybe, maybe by next year, next spring, I will be harvested my own wine caps. Or for those of you, garden giants or Strafara or all the same thing. So I am very much looking forward to seeing what I can do and what I can produce for my family. The only problem is, is right now we do have a lot of old, old wood. And so throwing that into the garden bed, letting it break down, false turkey tails everywhere.

Not something I want. I want actual turkey tails. I'm heartbroken and missed out on them. And then the false turkey tails are everywhere. But we'll get there. We will absolutely get there. And I'm hoping soon I will get to have as many beautiful mushrooms growing on my homestead to be able to feed my family. And here's a funny thing about me.

All of my friends talk about enjoying mushrooms. I've never had lions made. I've heard great things about it. But I've never had it. I did learn how to be able to grow lions made. I did learn how to grow oyster and chicken of the woods and all these other types. So I'm very excited to see where things go in the future. And I found out, you know, most of us like portabella's.

They are a cooler weather. And then I found out a close relative that is a hotter weather type of portabella. So I don't have my water with me and my throat is starting to try. I am looking forward to trying my hand at all of these different things. Sorry, I know. Sorry, someone asked me a question on how to alleviate something at this point, and so I threw my hand out there about it. Sorry, I'm just giving this through her real quick.

Okay, Mom to the Rescue. I actually love that about my friends. I have friends who will reach out to me. I have four kids. Sicknesses and ailments and tummy troubles or anything else is not new to me. My oldest is going to be 17 in August. My youngest is going to be 3 in August. So I've got four and you've got to realize there is a stair step, 17, 13, 11, 3, right?

They're all about to have birthdays. And I am not a stranger to vomiting and nausea and diarrhea and constipation and all of the things that come with parenthood, as most of us. And I pride myself in the fact that my friends will reach out and ask me, hey, what can I use to do this? Because they do know that I'm not against modern medicine by any means. Grew up in it. I work in it. I understand it, right? but a lot of times I know easy little things that can be done with natural medicine or natural food

or certain things that can alleviate. So I am one of those people where if a friend asked me, I'm going to say, okay, what are your symptoms? What's going on? And most of my friends know by now, hey, I've got this, this, this and this going on for this amount of hours, is at this, you know, whatever. I'm like, okay, what have you tried? And then I'll get a list. And it's like, okay, from there, do this, this, or these are your options.

And it's not that I know right off the hand, I'm not a medical doctor, but the fact that my friends trust me enough to give them advice of you can do this for this or you can do this for that or you can try these things. And the fact that some of them will be like, hey, that worked perfectly. Or, hey, this didn't do what I thought. I'm like, okay, well, everybody's a bit different when it, comes to certain things. They'll work, but not as much as they would have hoped. So we go from there. But I like the fact that I can be that for my friends. I love my friends. And the fact that we're

comfortable enough with each other to share our life, that's phenomenal. So for example, I have a friend who, she's not a homesteader at all. She talked about wanting chickens and love her to death, but I had to tell her, yeah, you might not want chickens. And then when I explained what went into it, she said, nope, because I don't sugarcoat. I'm not trying to stop her from having chickens. By all means, I would love for everyone to have at least three chickens. So then you're having eggs at all times. But not everyone's cut out for all of the things that go with. And I told her, I said, if you're going to have chickens, you need no more than four. because of the fact that you don't like the poop.

And when it rains, it's going to smell awful. And if you're going to do just a tiny coop, expect to never keep grass wherever that coop is, unless you're running a chicken tractor. And still then you may lose your grass in certain areas. So just explaining it and the work that goes into it made her release, yeah, chickens aren't for me. And it's not to be ugly.

I love her to death. She is one of my best friends. And I'll be more than happy to give her egg. as much as she wants and help her out. But it's not for everybody. And that's okay. Absolutely okay. There are going to be aspects to homesteaden for some of us that people are deterred from

and other aspects that were deterred from. And that's fine. Some people like the homesteading just from the garden aspect. Perfectly okay. And there are others who like it just for the chickens. And that's okay. I am that household that has everything but horses. Not that I don't like horses.

I couldn't do it. So I commend all my friends who have horses. And those of you who do, one, they're expensive. Two, they're giant animals. I'm only five foot two. I have been face to face and toe to toe with horses. Don't get me wrong. I've been in some precarious situations in where had one charging at me.

I didn't move. He did, luckily. But that is, that is the thing is they are, they're a big beast and beautiful and smart. But I, I don't want to raise horses. I'm fine with my, my food. I'm fine with my animals. And that's another thing. I've met people who are homesteaders and there, if you can hear that pop, sorry, I needed that. their animals are their pets and the thought of processing a pet just absolutely has them appalled. And not giving them a hard time, but that's not my style. Yes, are my chickens all in my girls, all in my hands are Lucy because it's, damn it, Lucy, get out of my way. Because there's always one that wants to be right there at the door when you're trying to carry in a 50 pound bag,

a feed or a 10-gallon container full of water, and I'm already struggling for my life. Or Charlie, which is the roosters, when you got one who wants to follow you because he knows if you're going blackberry picking, he can get some. And he's right on your coat tails. And it's like, damn it, Charlie, I'm going to step on you, except for sparkles. We have one rooster named sparkles. And that is because Christopher and my girls thought it was a hen because of how prettily speckled it was and then find out a rooster. So Sparkles kept his name Sparkles. Yeah. But I don't care if they have names.

My kids know, even if they have names, we're still going to eat them. I have no corals about processing these animals because they're not pets. They're food for me. But not everybody thinks the same way. And that's okay. Do I pick at my friends who have pets in that food? Absolutely. But I do it in an endearing way because it is, it tickles me because I don't have that thought process when it comes to them.

And that's okay. Did my daughter proceed to name every single Declan? Absolutely. Having to call her because she's on her. summer break and let her know that two of them were gone, but luckily not one of her four favorite ones was interesting. She goes, oh, okay, as long as it's not cookie dough, brownie, yellow mellow, or, um, ooh, she's going to give me, I can't remember the third one, fourth one. Yeah, she named one yellow mellow. I can't remember. So the four main ones, though, I know exactly what they look like.

I know exactly their print. I know because she made sure they, and they are very characteristic. So she's like, as long as an animal didn't get those, I'm fine. And she knows that eventually those ducks will be eaten. So she is fine with that. But as of right now, those four are protected. So they will be the last ones to go. So kids are the one thing that sometimes hang me up on getting to process things out in an order.

But I've also told them if we find out a lot of those ducks or if all those ducks are drakes, then those drakes will be processed pretty quickly and put in the freezer. So there is an understanding on our homestead. My kids are allowed to name them. They do understand that eventually those named animals could become food or will become food. It's just a matter of how long. If they are females, they will get to live. live much longer because we will keep them for egg production and it will go from there.

So raising your children to understand how homestead works or how the life cycle of these animals are, it's probably the kindest thing you can do. I've always been very straightforward with my kids. My girls were worn in papooses or carriers every time I processed animals. My children are not strangers to watch and me process an animal or understanding that they are food. And so from there, you know, my 10-year-old asked me to teach her how to process chickens this year. And she did it. Hands-on, processed two roosters by herself. She did phenomenal. I couldn't be more proud. But that's it, is having your children, now my oldest girl, 10, she's going to be 11 soon. You get it. My oldest girl was like, stood there and watched. She goes, yeah, I just don't want to get

my hands dirty. She goes, but I want to watch. And that's fine. All of my children are very much familiar. They don't shy away. They're not squeamish. But them understand it. Okay. So when we do this, the goal is, is once they come back, my girls want me to teach them. They want to cook actually one of the birds they processed or she processed. And so that's another thing is talking through, okay, are we breaking down the meat off of the bird? Are we cooking the bird whole? And so there's a whole process and another learning skill of understanding, okay, you've done the first part, the hard part of processing it, cleaning it, putting it away. And now the better part, the reward is the cooking it and making a meal out of it. So the fact that she's excited,

it to cook the rooster that she processed gives me hope that I am doing something correctly and sharing those skills and sharing those thought processes and letting them learn from it. My youngest girl loves to cook. She wants to cook. And so I'm working on duplicating my little cookbook with my recipes and having it for both my girls because they do enjoy it. And having it where as we cook, as we try things, taking down notes. So if we make new recipes, we write those down immediately and expanding that and expanding her skill set. So we're, I'm thrilled.

As a mother, I am absolutely thrilled to see my daughter's flourish. Does one not want to? Yes. And I get that. She's at that teenager stage. I can't force it. But the fact that she doesn't shy away from it, still great. Still great. My younger one, yes, she wants to be a chef. She also wants to be a veterinarian and a medical doctor. So we'll see where she goes. Sky's the limit for all of my kids. My oldest boy did the same thing growing up. If he killed it, he cleaned it and he cooked it. So hunt and squirrel, cleaned it. He cooked squirrel for us. He did a great job. It was phenomenal and delicious.

even though there wasn't a lot of meat on the bone, but he tried, and it turned out great. He cooked raccoon. Could have cooked a little bit longer, but, I mean, taste wasn't bad. So it's one of those things where we are, I let my children try their hands at things. No, don't worry. I'm just glad to have you, garden girl. It's a day late and a dollar short. We know that's what I say, especially on a Sunday when I'm behind, which I noticed on

Rumble. I screwed up and I got to see if I can change the title afterwards. I accidentally just hit start and it had the template date of August 21st of 2023. We are not anywhere near August 21st of 2023, but it happens. Oh, Garden Girl, you'll hear it on the recap. I thank you on the Lufa. They are grown beautifully. I don't have any fruit on it yet. I'm hoping to at least get one or two so then I can let them dry on there and then take the seeds and regrow them next year. But it is encouraging as a mother to see my kids flourish and have a country lifestyle and understand what they're doing, understanding what it takes, understanding how to complete the process. So being able to hunt or fish or process an animal for our family, being able to understand what it

takes to clean that kill, understanding what it takes to put it away if you're not going to eat it right away, or how to process it or brine it to be able to then cook it and then cook it and feed your family. Those are all things that I encourage if a child says that, hey, I want to do this. Okay. Do you want my help or would you like to try it yourself? Well, if they've never done it before they'll be like, can you do it with me? I said, okay. And usually what I do, like I did with the chickens with my daughter, she had a rooster. I had a rooster. I processed one out in front of her. And then I let her do the other one by herself. And if she had questions, I was right there to help her and assist. And then by the second one, she was on her own.

She did phenomenal. I believe to teach children, you need to be right there and show them. But then let them do it themselves. Are they going to make you? mistakes? Absolutely. Do you expect to be perfect? No, but that is how they learn. Hey, how far down do I cut here? Or what do I do? I can't get this off. Okay, this is what you do. It gives them engagement. It gives them hands on and it gives them the experience that they wouldn't get elsewhere. You'll get a bunch. Mine never came until late summer. It's like teach a model. I do, we do, you do. Exactly. So Garden Girls says in our, our Instagram chat.

The teaching model is, I do, we do, you do. Exactly. And that's what it is. I'll show. You watch right there. Then we'll do it together. You'll do. And then you'll do completely on your own.

And as Cosmos says also in our Instagram chat, Selfer Alliance is so important. I don't know how to do these things. You know what? That's okay, Cosmos. You ever need help? Shoot me a message. I'll be happy to do even.

a webinar with you. I would be happy to share those skills. Am I perfect at it? No. Am I still learning different tricks every time I do something? Yes. I've gotten good enough at processing chickens. We don't dip or pluck. Again, like I've said in previous shows, I can't afford a plucker. They are ungodly expensive. I don't process chickens enough to need a plucker. And the boiling and dipping and sitting there and hold them and plucking feathers is too much of a pain. So for me, I do the skinning method and I can skin a chicken and get my area cleaned up in 20 minutes, especially on a fast. You know, it's a quick need to get it clean.

I get it before the heat gets too much and to make sure no bugs get on it. 20 minutes. And that is also including, I've skinned it, I've gutted it, I've, there's nothing, you know, it's just the meat and the bird and cleaning up my entire space. So I feel like that's a good speed. It's fast. And that works. I know what it takes.

So we'll say 15 minutes. at most to process a bird with the skin and method, but at least I have it down well enough. I understand that, okay, 15 minutes per birds, if I have, you know, four birds to do, that will take me an hour. But that's where I know how much I can process in a certain amount of time. Turkeys are a bit bigger. Turkeys have some strong wings on them. I've putting one upside down in a kill cone, especially when it's almost as big as me.

I've had a feathers. We've had wings, poppice in the face. We were all certain each of us, we're going to have like black eyes because there's a lot of force behind it. It's like getting hit by grown up. But that's just a part of it is learning. Learning to spot. So for me, teaching my kids, here's the organs. This is the liver.

These are the lungs. These are the kidneys, showing them the parts, showing them what you're looking for, what you don't want things to look like. Being able to see the health of your bird or your animal while you're processing it makes all the difference in the type of meat that you consume. Chickens have a better taste when they are farm raised because they grow at a slower rate versus the chicken you get in the store has been produced so quickly there is no flavor to it. No, right. Exactly, Cosmo. It's never too late to start learning. And no matter how young or old you are, it's never too late. So the reason I say this next part on especially jumping off the fact of being able to inspect your food when you're processing it.

Aw. Yeah. So Cosmo said that she carried a Canadian goose to her rescue and yes, they are strong. Yes, geese are, I think, think are more intense than turkeys, just in their strength and force. That's me. All right. So back in the day, I grew up in a town where we had chicken factories. And at some point, just about everybody worked at the factory. I worked at one and we would see chickens being brought in who are not even three, four weeks old, and they're over 25 pounds. It's no three-week-old chicken should be beyond 25 pounds. It's absurd. It's all the hormones and everything else, right?

Here's the thing you don't know about your food. And mind you, we had three chicken factories in my town. And the blood pawns always stunk, and the factory always made the town stink. And we had ideal bread next to it as well. So that had its own stink, which you think. think bread would smell good? No. No, it usually doesn't. And these factories would bring in birds. Now, if the bird was perfect and looked great, that's the bird you get that is whole and packaged and sitting in your local market. Then you have the soles in which we had to cut the breast,

we had to cut the wings, we had to cut the legs, that's where you cut it down, right? Okay, But before we got to the cut in part, those birds that did not make quality to be a whole bird packaged. They had a bruise, they had an infection, they had something going on that didn't look too good. Those were the ones that were sent to the kitten table. Why? Because those pieces would be cut off and the rest of the bird would still be fed to you, which is disgusting to think about. Now, sometimes certain birds just didn't meet weight or size. Yes.

but you always had those few where you could tell there was some sort of infection, and it's just cut off and the meat is still sent out to people. I'm one of those people where, after working there, really changed my opinion on a lot of meat. And I was young. So I'm very finicky when it comes to store-bought food or store-bought meat. With my birds and with others, if they ask me to process and there's an infection, I will send them a picture and usually, actually always, it's a consensus to toss the bird. Because if there is an infection in one part of its body, it is completely systematic.

It is going to be everywhere. It's in the bloodstream. It's going to be considered contaminated. Had a bird with a sore, didn't realize it until completely skinned it down and you see this horrible green mark. How did it happen? I don't know. Actually, it wasn't my bird. It was a bird I was processing.

And it was more than enough to say, no. And sometimes that's how it is, especially the bigger the birds, especially with turkeys. If they sit too long, sometimes they can produce sores. The sores get infected because of how large they are. It is just a way of it. Sometimes you have to count for loss even in your food area. And that was one of those things where it was just counted as a loss. but to know that in a lot of these health or food industries,

you are getting food that could have had an infection and nothing's being done about it. You're still being served it. So to know that actually a lot of the birds that were cut up that had infection. Now, mind you, this was 20 years, 17, 18 years ago, those birds that had the infections that were cut up and then had to be cut up more, you usually ended up in the kids cuisines or the food trays, like the microwave dinners,

or in the pre-packaged chicken like the frozen meat sometimes. So it's just one of those things you figure out real quickly is, ooh, I never ate another TV dinner ever again, which is fine. I can't now because everything's full of soy. But after that, I never touched another TV dinner when I found out that they were going in the kids cuisines and the adult TV dinners. And I just said, nope. Oh, okay.

So Cosmo says we have a chicken processing factory here in Vancouver. And I know the smell. I was volunteering at the computer recycling facility and you could smell. Yeah. Chicken factories have a very distinctive smell that encapsulate everything. And on top of it, bread factories have a very intense smell that encapsulate everything. You think paper meals are bad? have eight three chicken factories next to a bread factory.

It is absolutely one of the most disgust in smells between the two. They both stink something god awful and then add them together. I would rather be near a paper mill if that tells you anything. Paper mills, I feel like don't stink near as bad as those two. But that's personal opinion. But it just goes to show I always encourage people to raise them to have soy protein is an ingredient in chicken. Soy protein, so I know it's a lot of cheap servants now for a lot of things. I don't buy store-bought chicken at all because I raise them.

Soy protein is used in everything. It is a cheap protein crop and most people don't realize I had a doctor explain this, especially when going through health issues with my youngest, and I'm aware of these issues that two of my other three, out of all four, three of them have issues of the dairy allergy. It's a protein allergy. Well, I found out if you have a dairy allergy of any kind, you're more likely to develop a soy allergy. And soy allergies don't go away from constant exposure. They actually get more intense, and you don't grow out of them. So over the years, because of the constant exposure, I am now at a point of anaphylactic reaction to soy.

And yes, do I have a dairy protein allergy? Yes, do I still eat or drink dairy every now and then? Yes, I understand what it does to me. It does not cause it in the anaphylactic reaction, luckily, but I do know what it does to me. And so I can limit it. My older two understand as well, my little one does not. So I control how much he has. but that is one of those things.

My oldest has a soy and dairy allergy. We learned that very, very early, and that's when we figured out I had a soy allergy. And from there, a lot of people don't realize I had a doctor explain it that because of how much soy is fun to these cows, it incorporates in and then causes you're more likely to develop one. So it's very interesting and terrifying all at the same time because soy is, yeah, cause you. bread smells that. It smells horrible in a factory set. And it's not like a cute little bakery smell. It is disgusting. But soy is a cheap and easy crop. And soy is not a naturally occurring plant, from my understanding it is a man-made crop. And so because of that, you have more people who develop allergies to things that have been man-altered or made. And it happens. So for us,

I make our mayonnaise. I have to check everything that we buy. There's maybe one brain of bread that I can buy annies. It's expensive and they don't have soin it, but they mold quickly. And I get it. That's okay because I do sourdough. So I've got to feed my starter after this before I go check on my friend's chicken. And I make our bread.

We don't, we're not big bread eaters. So I can get away with making a loaf. I keep it in the fridge for about a week or two as we eat it. And then I make another loaf and put it back in the fridge. And it works for us. Hold on. Cosmo says, I drink a lot of milk from the carton. I realized I was lactose intolerant. What was a huge amount, though? Right. So, Cosmo, keep in mind, though. Not everyone will develop the soy allergy, but it's very common if you have a dairy allergy of some sort to develop a soy allergy. So just keep that in mind. I have, with that, have had to be careful.

A lot of places cook with soy bean oil now. And I have a hard time at outdoor events with food trucks because if they vent it, that oil is being vented in the air. And anywhere the skin is exposed, I will start to rash and itch and hive and everything. And it is, I'll start getting an itchy throat. My throat will start burning. And my eyes hurt the whole nine yards. I'm having early stages of anaphylaxis.

So if I know I'm going to an event where there could be food trucks, you have to pregame with a Benadryl. And then I always keep my EpiPin on me. So it is one of those things where I did it. We went to drive races, completely forgot about the, I didn't think about it. You know, it's not one of those things because I'm in, I make everything from home that I didn't think about it. And then it's like, oh, my face, my arms, my legs, because I was in shorts, anywhere that means I was immediately, I'm like, this is miserable. So it's just one of those things

where I'm not going to stop living, even if the world's trying to kill me. Not intentionally, but I do what I can. And that's a part of it is knowing what your limitations are. For me, homesteaden is just the best option. And honestly, really the only option, in my opinion, for us, because of the fact that I can't eat most of our bought breads. I can't eat, believe it or not, I have to be picky on my peanut butter. I found Justin's. And Justin's is one of the few brands I can't eat, even their peanut butter cups, which is my little guilty pleasure for sugar because it's dark chocolate and their peanut butter is just pure peanut butter. There's no soy. They're Justin's peanut butter. It's more expensive. Engle sells it. But if you turn it over,

it's literally just peanut butter. And that's the best part. Most of the stuff that you buy, take a look at the ingredients. Just a challenge for all of you. Just take a look at the ingredients of what you buy and look at how much soy is incorporated in everything. If it's soy lectin, soy protein, soy, there's so many different subcategories of soy. And here's the thing about soy that people have seemed to have forgotten. Soy actually increases the estrogen levels in your body. Soy is actually not recommended for male consumption at large quantities because of the fact that it can give you too much estrogen and suppress some of your testosterone. So that whole saying of soy boys is there for a reason.

It's not to be harsh. It's not to be ugly. It's because of the fact that all of that soy does affect you or your offspring because the amount of estrogen that it is building up in your body. Oh, sorry, I'm reading something real quick. Right. So I get that causal. And yes, you have to be careful with certain sensitivities,

say certain, oh, God bless you on the digestive. Yeah. It's just, yeah, seed and oils are in near everything. That is not in common. When we go to restaurants, I am that person. I don't like to be, and I feel bad, but I don't want to die. So I have to ask, what oil do you fry with? Is it margarine or butter? And is it 100% beef? Yes. Is it 100% beef? Didn't think you'd have to ask that because what is it? Ruby Tuesdays or Applebee's, one of them does not use 100% ground beef. They add soybean protein in it because it is a cheap protein feeler and then they can cut the cost of how much beef they use because they are feeding you soy in those ground beef burgers. So it's one of those things that take a little more initiative.

If I go somewhere, like we're going out to dinner with friends, I have to let my waiter know. I have a soy allergy. I have an intense soy allergy that say they use real butter, that I can't have the bread. So I will get a burger and they say, oh, okay, we understand. The cook will come out. They feel bad. But there's not much I can do. A lot of times the chickens, like if you want to eat chicken, is actually already marinated in a soy sauce-based food.

So that is one of those things where I have to ask these questions just to be able to eat. Even with the salads, you'd be surprised. A lot of places will deep fry their bacon to cook it quick, and it's fried in soybean oil. So it's funny. is the more you know. Like, pay attention. I honestly want to challenge all of y'all to take a look, whether it's something in your pantry or the next time you're in the grocery store,

pick something up and look at the ingredients. It's kind of terrifying. So the fact that I can make our cheeses, because I can't eat store brand cheeses, I can make our bread, I make our mayonnaise, I raise our chicken. To be able to do these things, is a big deal for us to be able to feed, to grow, to produce, to have is amazing.

Yes, am I going to produce enough food to last me ages? Not necessarily, but it saves us a little bit from the pesticide exposure. Blueberries and strawberries in the markets have shown to have the most dangerous level of pesticides that actually calls sterility in little boys and other health that people don't realize. No kids loved when I used to make crackers. Yeah, Garden Girl, your kids loved. Yes. And cheeses are so easy and so much fun.

And hopefully soon, he says no on the goats, but we'll see. Either way, I'm going to have sheep. I would love to have a couple milk goat, because goat's milk, is huge in this house. I can tolerate it. My son can tolerate it. Tolerated. It's great with cooking. Goats cheese. I mean, it's phenomenal. I love goat's milk. If I get the right kind of sheep,

which I really want fiber sheep. I'm still really thinking about I'd like to have an East Frisian for their great for meat, milk, and some fiber. Our fiber's a little coarser, but they're great. And when they lamb, usually I'm about three. So triplets are always good. Oh, garden girl. You know what? That's just it. You're going to out. You're moving out here. We're going to start a commune. We're going to have our own little community. We'll make sure we have plenty of acreage. So we each have our own privacy when we want it. And then we just trade amongst each other. But we have friends who have goats and my fancy things. How long? how noisy they are and how the male goats are. And I would do the face and the sound on here, but y'all would be laughing your ass off because it is obnoxious and rude. And I'm sure that's

not something I want stuck on the internet for the rest of my life. But you can look up male goat sounds. And their tongue is flapping and they're making those horrible sounds like. Yes, Nigerian goats are perfect. Oh my God. They are hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. But animals have personalities. Now, would my sheep be pets? You don't know. Probably yes and no.

They all have personalities. All animals do. But at the same time, and hard times, food's food. We joke in our house, and it's not really a joke. Would we eat a dog? Yeah, if we had to. Would we eat our own dog? Absolutely not.

Even though my dog is just a dog, it is a pet. That's our one pet, but it's a working pet. If something happened, like, you know, here's an insert from, oh, was it one minute after? I'm fine with the part in the book where they explain that people are starting to starve and their dog dies and their neighbor's dog dies and they trade their dogs and they eat each other's dogs. And it's like, I could do that. I could do that. a lot easier than eating my own dog.

But everything else is pretty fair game. Cosmic goat cheese tastes so weird to me. Like burning hair, I can't eat. So, right, and that's garden girl says the next thing. It depends on what the goat is fed. A good, healthy, balanced diet. The cheese is phenomenal. I would compare it more like to a mozzarella.

Or you can make a mozzarella, but the taste is milky. and creamy and I absolutely love it. Yeah, so Garden Girl was actually going to mention the same part of the book. I was going to mention that part in the book too. And that's what I thought of is that book had so many inaccuracies. And I actually had this conversation with someone yesterday at the mushroom class. it had so many inaccuracies to things, especially the pole part, y'all, please don't think that what he said about the pool could actually be used. I've mentioned this in previous shows.

Christopher, my Christopher used to be a pool cleaner, and if a pool is left for a full day without circulation by the next day, by two to three days, it will be a frog pond. It is not going to regulate temp enough to keep insulin cool. It is not going to be safe enough to drink out of or swim in. And you definitely don't want to drink out of swimming pools because the chemicals that put in it are heavy toxic metals that you do not want to ingest. So that is just something to keep in mind. Yeah, that was that was the whole thing about that book. It was a good book. But don't take everything you read as factual because that was definitely a part of the book. that just kind of irked me, even from the beginning, before I knew even more.

It just wasn't realistic. But, hey, it was a book. You know, it's fiction. But it's one of those things where you do have to keep in mind, if we ever hit an S-H-T-F, what are you willing to do as far as food? Those people who have their chickens as pets now are with that mental and emotional conundrum of understanding that those pets now may be a primary food source. So you have to keep in mind that those are parts of it. I really went down the rabbit hole. I went so far left.

I'm sorry, y'all. Okay, I've been on air for an hour and 15. I imagine I've talked plenty, and I appreciate you for being here. But I am going to jump off. I have things I have to get done. and chicken I have to tend to. Elsewise, I hope you all have an amazing remainder of your weekend, a great week. And we'll see what happens. I said I wouldn't be on next Saturday. We'll see.

It will be the fourth. Maybe I'll jump on just to say happy fourth. We'll see. All right. Yes, have a great Sunday, Garden Girl, Cosmo, and to everyone else in here in Techstad. Have a great day. Enjoy it.

For us here on the East Coast, we're having a rainy day here in North Carolina. still beautiful, still going to enjoy it. All right, folks. Take care. Have a great day. And I shall see you. Bye, y'all.

Oh, got to love technology.