The Sovereign Homestead Podcast

In today's episode we take a deep dive into Permaculture Design Principle #10 - Optimize The Edge. We will discuss: Edge: What is it exactly? The real-world effects of edges in your homestead landscape with regards to energy translation, species diversity and overall productivity. How to manage edge for physical environments/elements to get more of what you want and less of what you don't (HINT: I...

This week we look at Permaculture Design Principle #9: Choose Small-Scale, Intensive Solutions. This is all about managing intensively in a small footprint at the start - and expanding what works and changing or eliminating what does not. We'll talk about the importance of testing your systems before expanding them by conducting Safe To Fail experiments. We also talk about PROFIT - that most impor...

Today we take a deeper look at Permaculture Design Principle #8 - Integrate, Don't Segregate. This principle is fundamentally about 'stacking functions' - a common term we hear a lot in perma-speak - but what does that really mean and HOW do you go about doing it? We'll talk nuts and bolts of creating functionally redundant systems, including: Segregation vs. integration, and the energetic costs o...

Design from pattern to details. Anyone who has read a permaculture book has heard this - but how to actually DO IT? Today we talk about Natural Constants and the Yeomans Scale of Permanence as tools you can use to help you design from big, broad, largely immutable patterns down to small, granular, actionable details. This is how you can ground the small actions you take in any given moment to a 7t...

Today we're talking about the 6th permaculture design principle: Make No Waste. In Nature, "waste" = food. How can we design our homesteads and the various life support systems on them such that the "waste" from one becomes the food for another? How many energetic loops and connection can we create between elements, systems and organisms? We'll discuss one of the simple tools for enacting the Wast...

Today we continue our Deep Dive series on the 12 foundational principles of permaculture. In this episode we take a deeper look at Principle #5: Use And Value Nature's Gifts / Collaborate With Succession / Work With Nature, Not Against It. There are numerous different ways this principle is written, and we'll explore the nuance of all three of the most common versions, as well as what you can spec...

In today's episode we continue with our Permaculture Design Principle Deep Dive Series with Principle #4 - Self Regulate And Accept Feedback. We talk about why those two terms - 'self regulate' and 'accept feedback' come packaged together, and how each is important to create an environment that promotes rapid iteration and 'safe to fail' testing of systems followed by planned amplification or damp...

Today is the third episode in our Permaculture Design Principle Deep Dive series - Obtain A Yield. This is all about intentionally designing living systems on our homesteads that provide for our needs to live a great life. Join me as we discuss... The different types of yields you can design for: product, energy and intangible/impalpable The Definition of a system yield - and the 5 ways you can go...

Today we take a deeper look at the second of the core permaculture design principles - Catch And Store Energy. This is what designing a functional and resilient ecosystem is all about - energy in vs. energy out. Everything that is alive needs to bring in more energy than it expends in order to 1) sustain its own existence and 2) to reproduce. If we design our homesteads and homes to catch and stor...

This is the first in a series of episodes that will go into depth on how to apply and leverage each of the 12 foundational design principles used in permaculture.  The first design principle is Observe and Interact. It is  the keystone design principle, from which all others are held together and applied toward a functional end. Join me as we discuss: The context for applying the permaculture desi...

Today we are talking about homestead security. It's a topic that is left out of a lot of "mainstream" permaculture design books - and really its hardly mentioned at all as a design consideration. We live in a weird time, when for just a few short generations, and then only for a select few people, we've been able to delegate our security to "the authorities" (911, the cops etc). We are quickly hea...

In today's episode we re-cap the takeaways from the 2-day grazing school I attended at Greg Judy's Green Pastures Farm in Clark, Missouri. The school was awesome, with great instruction from Greg and his co-instructor Abram Bowerman of Still Waters Farm in Spickard, MO. Intensively managed ruminant livestock are  the tool for building soil rapidly, at scale over broad acre landscapes. The benefits...

Today's episode is a short one about just doing the next thing. You don't have to have everything mapped out ahead of time. If you have a set of principles (permaculture) and a long-term, BIG vision (your Minimum Holistic Goal - aka your "10 Year Vision"), it becomes very easy to prioritize and act on the  next most impactful thing,  without having a master plan. It's the SAPA framework - Survey,...

Today's show is all about getting clear on what makes a homestead sovereign vs. a modern homestead vs. just a homestead. SPOILER ALERT: It's all about CHOICE. A well-designed homestead gives you more choice - more freedom to say NO to those things that are not in alignment with your highest quality of life, so that you can say yes to the things that are. We then go into the SAPA Framework for cond...

Today's show is the interview I just did with Jen and Sammy of the Millennial Pioneers Podcast on What Is Permaculture?  We talk about the basics of what permaculture is about, and tangible, simple ways to get started integrating permaculture design and mindset into designing our own lives. We are living in a time when the bills racked up over the past centuries and decades of over-taxing our ecol...

Homestead Super Plant Showcase - All About Amazing Vetiver Grass If you haven't heard of vetiver grass and are homesteading in USDA zone 7b or higher, this is a must listen! Vetiver Grass -  Chrysopogon zizanioides - is a perennail, tufted, clump-forming grass that grows up to 9' tall in the tropics, and typically 6' tall in Mediterranean and humid temperate climates. It is known worldwide for its...

How can we design our lives and our homesteads to maximize our freedom in Time, Health, Wealth and Spirit? This is a primary lifestyle design aim for anyone interested in living as a sovereign human being today. Join me today as we discuss the 4 freedoms - all of which are aspects of FREEDOM - the ability to choose / say "no" to things. Freedom in time is by nature a state of abundance. Abundance...

The day has finally arrived! We are leaving California and moving to Tennessee! In today's show I go into all the things that are pushing us out of California and pulling us towards the Volunteer State! We'll cover the economic and regulatory reasons why California just isn't an option for us to build a life here, and why the economic and regulatory landscape of Tennessee is a much better fit for...

In today's show I detail my journey into what will be a multi-year endeavor - completely de-Googling my life. For us to live as sovereign human beings this day in age, we have to consciously design our digital lives to maintain appropriate levels of privacy and security amidst the ever-rising tide of surveillance and tracking. De-Googling my phone was one process I began a year ago in order to sta...

What if we chose to view nature's gift of annually-replenishing fixed carbon sources (i.e. brush, forests etc) in high-fire danger areas as an opportunity to harmonize with the annual carbon cycle instead of as a nuisance to be combated? Could we improve home safety in the urban-wildland edge and take steps towards living within our annual solar energy budget, while saving money and improving habi...

  In today's show we continued with the Living With Fire series in Part 3 - all about fire-proof or at least fire-wise home construction and home refit suggestions to increase fire survivability. Its all simple - some steps are easy and cheap, some are not. We will cover... Fire Proof Building Materials - stone, compressed/rammed earth (super adobe), earthbag construction, straw bale construction,...

Today we dive into the nitty gritty of regenerative firescaping following Living With Fire - Part 1 in Episode 33. We will cover: Using Zones & Sectors to plan out the landscape around your house with regards to fire resilience. Regenerative Fire Resistant Landscaping Principles - the basic do's an don'ts to apply when designing a fire resilient landscape and homestead. Fire Safety Buffers - two d...

Today's show is the first episode in a series of shows that I'll be putting out on designing, building and managing a homestead in a high-fire risk climate. So much energy in the form of human labor, tax dollars, and lost ecological integrity is expended each and every year for the purpose of reducing fire risk - and yet many of these interventions don't actually reduce the risk of home damage or...

Today's show is inspired by the Ayn Rand quote "We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality." We (the larger collective of society, government etc) have been living in ignorance of reality for quite a while. Right now, a multitude of the consequences of this multi-generational ignorance are coming home to roost. Our financial system and the debt-backed fiat cur...

Join me for a discussion of 5 Rules For Happy Homesteading from my own lived experience. Be crystal clear on your BIG Why -  why are you doing your life the way you are doing it? Finish What You Start - obtain a yield and liberate your time BEFORE adding more projects, systems or things to take care of! Build in Management for every system you add - when you are designing, growing, building make s...