Suburban Intro to Homesteading

Recently I shared a post on Facebook about LeBron James describing the incredible personal achievements he has made on top of his career achievements. I don't know anything about basketball or the player that is LeBron James, but I live in Ohio so I certainly know of the guy. Heck, my wife even got to see him play in a tournament when they were both still in high school! But I was very impressed to read about how he has been a loyal husband, a good father, and basically a father figure to over 1,000 local youth by helping pay their way through college. It's incredible! The guy is a freaking great role model.   The post about LeBron got me thinking about role models and their importance in our culture today, especially in regards to who my children will look up to. I didn't really grow up paying much attention to any role models, except maybe Bob Saget because lets be real, Americas Funniest Videos was the amazing predecessor to YouTube. However, social media allows

In honor of it being 1 year since I wrote my first blog post, I wanted to start focusing on it again. So here is a glimpse of the going-ons of my life right now. More writing coming soon. If fat is stored energy I would like to turn on that generator please. After reaching a couple of milestones in the fitness world I had to take a hard look at the progress I've made. That lead me down a road of admittance that I don't have a lot of self control. Wanna race? You betcha. Wanna eat a whole pan of brownies? Absolutely. Drink all these beers? I'm already 4 ahead. So what's the answer to burning fat? Is there only one? (Preview....Of course not! This is a post about the one I am trying though) It took quite a few years and an abundance of exposure but eventually the Ketosis diet/lifestyle peaked my interest. Mostly because of a fitness expert/adventurer/bio-hacking podcaster I listen to swears by it. The big issue is that everyone says it's hard. Of course its har

Chickens!! Our family is very excited that getting a half dozen chickens is becoming less of a fantasy and more of a possibility in the near-er future! Most of my spare time has been spent watching YouTube videos on how to raise backyard chickens so that we can be as prepared as possible. This will be one of the first major steps towards my Blogs original goal of introducing our family to Suburban Homesteading. So far we have done a couple minor things like getting a handle on Brewing Kombucha, I'm able to brew 2 gallons of yummy goodness every 8-10 days. Like so many Americans, I grew up in a normal suburb with fences, cats and dogs, and a lot of lawnmowers. No one had anything more exotic or farm-like than an occasional pet snake or a gerbil. It wasn't until adulthood that I developed an interest in having pet chickens. "What? Pet chickens!? You cant have food for a pet." That's my voice up until I was about 27. Lots of things have walked me down the p

Faith over Worry. It has been my experience in life, that "God only gives us one obstacle we cant overcome, and we will die from it." At first this seems a bit dark, or dim. However, this quote almost entirely encapsulates my faith in God. I was raised in a Christian Church doing all the weird ritual things that might give you heebie jeebies like chanting along with people in robes, singing off key in unison, Christian rappers, drinking wine that everyone insists is blood (which is just so so weird to a child, lets be honest). *me looking toward the sky* I mean come on God, drinking blood? Super weird. But despite constantly being surrounded with things that feel weird and awkward in the modern world of Christianity or any religion for that matter, one thing has always stayed steadfast in my heart and mind and that was God working things out.  Maybe not how I thought it would get worked out, but it happened anyway. I could write a book on the things that have worked out

Getting back to my homesteading interests, I want to talk about my new favorite hobby, Kombucha Brewing and my motivations for it's consumption. First off, what is Kombucha? It's fermented tea that you can flavor almost any way you can imagine. It's also carbonated, which is a huge plus for those trying to kick soda habits, or just generally get tired of only drinking water all the time. I am about to finish up my third batch of Kombucha and I'm super excited about it. So far I've had Mango Ginger, Blueberry, and Cherry Cream Soda flavors, Those might sound pretty involved but for some perspective, in all of my batches the only ingredients I've used are Water, Sugar, Tea, SCOBY, Mango, Ginger, Blueberries, Cherries, Vanilla Bean, and Honey. About as natural as it can get. Wait, what was the weird word in the middle there? SCOBY. That sounds weird. It is weird! HaHa. It stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, which is a really long acronym

"Ok, we now recognize that kneeling for the national anthem is for social injustice and not intending to insult the military, but now what? come up with a solution right now and stop complaining because we still think your insulting the military, so come up with a solution right now because your making us angry complaining about social injustice"                  -Everyone who is smart enough to kind of get it, but expects everyone to live exactly how they do. Yesterday I wrote out a post outlining an experience I had with police officers where I feel I could draw a different outcome if my skin had been a different color. Would that outcome be different every time? Is every police officer a racist, mean, hateful, bigot? No. I believe that statistically there is a higher risk for violence if a black man had been in my shoes even without thinking that the majority of officers are bad. There were some varied responses on this, but one of the resounding things I heard, and