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Welcome back to another episode of the homegrown liberty podcast! WHAAA? Yep I’m back for a special announcement. I want to extend a special opportunity to all my friends who stuck with me all last year and helped make my podcast a success. I am going to be launching my Patreon campaign soon, but I thought.. I should give you guys the first shot at this and give you all a special thank you for your support and encouragement. But before we get into all that, You’re probably wondering “What is all this? What is Nick talking about? Patrea-what?”

Consulting

There is a need out there for consulting, for good solutions, for good information. A lot of you guys, and myself included are trying to make a go of this homesteading lifestyle in some fashion or another, some degree. Some of us are just learning, stuck in a dead end job, barely making it day to day. Some of you guys might be in the first year of implementing some of these things, you’re struggling to learn gardening for the first time in your life. Some may be ten years into this kind of lifestyle but no matter how experienced you are, you’re only one person, and you don’t have all the time in the world to research better ways to do things, or to find better solutions to complex problems.

For several years now, my main source of income has been from traveling all over the USA doing consulting jobs. And there are lots of people who can afford to pay a professional to come and help them fix or avoid problems. Or to troubleshoot issues they’ve been having and to come up with some good solutions. Some people just need help figuring out how to start a homestead and lay things out smart, because if you don’t know enough to know what questions to ask, then it’s hard to get things going right from the start. Some of ya’ll are perfectionists like me and just need enough of a push to start doing something with the confidence gained from having someone who is supposed to know what they’re talking about, identify issues and help design a good layout. And I totally get that!  

Budget

But here’s the rub, most people who need that kind of help and direction are in no way able to afford to pay me to drive for a day or two, spend a whole day with them, and drive home. A single consult can take a whole week out of my time, and that’s not cheap. I mean, I don’t have a problem charging for my time, and asking for what it’s worth. And I doubt any of you guys have an issue with that either. And yaknow what… It really bothers me that everyone who most needs the help I can give, can’t afford to get that help. There’s a problem here. To add to that issue, I have a ton of stuff I want to be able to convey and teach, that I just don’t have time for if I’m going to keep the lights on, and take care of my own family. I’ve gotta pay the bills, but at the same time I really want to give away my time and attention for free. So I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to get more helpful info into the hands of those who could use the knowledge while still being able to pay the bills.

Options

I had mostly finished setting up a paid membership website where I would have different tiers of content available to members. But again, I ran into the whole problem of only the people who could afford to pay would have access to the information. And that’s antithetical to what I really want to accomplish. Not to mention there are a bunch of people with the same idea and let’s face it, I’m not one to follow the crowd.

I think I figured out a way to switch from mostly higher end and expensive consulting into giving away my time for free! But I’ll need your help to do it.

Patreon is the Solution

I found a really cool crowdfunding website called Patreon. If you haven’t heard of the website before now, it’s similar to kickstarter and indiegogo, except where they enable a person or group to build a cool product, or film a documentary, something that requires an initial influx of capital to kickstart the enterprise. Patreon allows a content creator to create with ongoing monetary support. Musicians can then get funding per song they release, or per album, or per month of work. Lots of youtubers are switching over to patreon, and they often set it up on a per month basis. That way if you like what they do and want them to continue, just go to their page, and pick what level of support you would like to contribute.

It works like this.. Head over to my page at this link, and watch my little intro video explaining what I’m doing. Then you can look over the rewards tier. Just like in other crowdfunding systems, there is a perks or rewards tier. For $1 a month, you support the show and get a few perks, for $5 a month you get even more cool stuff. The idea here is that you can support what I do with a tiny donation every month. If every one of my listeners donated a single dollar per month. I could do it full time and not have to worry about any outside work to pay my basic bills.

What I’m Doing

I want to SHOW you what we are doing. Now that I’m mostly caught up with consulting and outside work. I’m focusing on getting some business things fixed and figured out. And we are starting to film the homestead goings-on. Like I said at the beginning of the year, we are basically starting over from scratch. We are redoing everything and doing everything better this time. And I want to take you guys with us. I want to show you how I am setting up a new homestead and explaining all the reasons why. Think of it as a Practical Permaculture Design Course. I’ve also filmed several of my consultations and will be filming more as time goes on. So I’ll be able to take that material and digitally bring you along with me as my client and I design their homesteads and work through specific issues. The information may not be directly applicable to your situation, but the principles should help you to handle problems and issues in your homesteading and farming.
What I’m really excited about is the fact that I’ll be able to do something I really like doing. I get to research problems and come up with great solutions for you guys! For instance, I dunno about you, but if you try to find a good DIY chicken feeder that prevents food waste, it’s really hard to tell if something will work, and when you find videos, they’re awful quality normally. So I’m going to try them out for you and tell you what solutions work for what situations so you don’t have to waste time and money trying to come up with something that will work for you. And most of all, you won’t have to spend hours sifting through awful quality videos online. I’ll get you great lighting on the video, good audio quality, closeups, and parts lists. And I’ll try to stick to parts that can either be ordered online easily, or found at major stores.

Some of the projects we have coming up are automated irrigation for the garden, automatic watering for both chickens and rabbits. I want to show you guys my rabbit cages, the design features and what makes them great. We’re planting fodder trees, and rooting cuttings. Going to be showing you guys new and improved softwood cutting propagation methods and tricks. We are building a completely new garden from a forested area, so you’ll get to see the process of how I build soil and follow along from the zero point to fantastic soil. Suffice it to say, we have a lot going on right now and a lot to show you.

How You Can Help

I’m not going crazy with publishing this info just yet. I know there are a bunch of you guys who have been really encouraging and helpful this past year. And I want to give you all the first shot at signing up for this patreon campaign. What Patreon says to do is make a big ramp up hype campaign before launching, but then I can’t do what I want to do. Which is enable you guys to get a special gift from me to you. I know, you might be thinking, “I can’t make that much of a difference with just a dollar.” Well if just a fraction of you all help me out and sign up at just a single dollar, I’ll be able to do this full time and most likely I’ll be able to pick the podcast back up as well. I really want to be able to turn out some podcast content as well as videos. So if you like the idea at all, then go pick even the lowest perk just to show your support. Or pick one of the higher perks and get some really cool rewards!

So here’s the deal. The link to the patreon page is HERE. If you go and sign up to help support this venture at $5 a month or more and stick with me at least until December, I’ll send you a christmas gift. I’ll load up a priority mail box with goodies TBD, and it’ll show up in your mailbox before Christmas.

I can’t wait to see how this goes! You guys are awesome! If you want to share this info, go right ahead, but I’ll be keeping this mostly under wraps until the second week of July when I’ll hit social media hard and promote the launch. You have from today, until the end of this month to get in on the super special offer. I’ll put a packet of seed from any number of special vegetables and culinary herbs or edible perennials that I’ve been working on breeding for years now, shoot, you might even get some cool perennial bare root plants from me as well. So, to recap! If you sign up before Saturday at the $5 or up rewards tier, you’ll get the Christmas gift, plus some seed I’ve been growing for years or something really cool like that. After July the 1st, I’m changing the rewards back to normal for the main launch so if you want to get some plants and seeds from my homestead, you better hurry over to the patreon page and quickly sign up! The promo offer ends June 30th right before the clock strikes midnight Pacific Time which is 2 am central! There might be a bit of a cover crop mix, or comfrey cuttings, or rooted cuttings of some of my favorite plants, I dunno what’ll be in the box just yet, but whatever it is, you’ll definitely be happy about it!

So if you’re excited about helping me get this show on the road, then don’t delay, go sign up at that $5 and up reward tier to get your christmas gift! Thanks so much for your support and for listening to me today!

Until next time, I hope you have a wonderful day, God Bless. And as always “Go Do Good Things”