February 3, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of the Granger Smith Podcast, Granger welcomes special guests Jeremy and Melissa, the creators of the New World, Old Soul podcast and the Good Simple Living vlog. What started as a casual visit to Granger’s home turned into an inspiring conversation about their incredible journey—leaving behind conventional life in Portland, Oregon, to build a homestead in the remote mountains of northern Idaho.
Jeremy, a former police officer, and Melissa, a homeschooling mom, share how they took a leap of faith, quitting jobs, selling their home, and moving to an off-grid property with their four kids—all while documenting their adventure on YouTube. They discuss the challenges of self-sufficiency, homeschooling, and staying connected to their values in a world increasingly driven by technology and artificial intelligence.
Granger and his guests dive deep into the struggles and rewards of homesteading, the philosophical implications of AI and digital influence, and the fine line between content creation and truly living in the moment. They also explore the difficulty of maintaining friendships, setting boundaries in a world of constant connectivity, and the importance of raising kids with curiosity and resilience.
Tune in for a conversation filled with wisdom, faith, and an unfiltered look at what it really takes to pursue the dream of self-sufficiency.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Well, this is a special episode of the podcast, and
I'm I am so glad that you two are with me.
First of all, and I didn't plan this. I didn't
wake up this morning and think that I was going
to have you as guest on the podcast. But Jeremy
and Melissa, you came up to my house from Idaho
(00:31):
long ways to record a podcast with Amber and I
and your podcast New World, Old Soul, and it's it's
actually fantastic and very practical, and it is it's it's
from the perspective of good simple living.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I guess you could.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Say, correct.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I think that's accurate.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Which is the vlog that you guys also have a
family vlog. And I'm fascinated by your story though, And
so as we were kind of setting up for your
podcast here at the house, I said, Hey, do you
want to get on my podcast? And you want to
join me because I think a lot of people could
benefit from your wisdom and the way that you process things,
(01:20):
because a it's relatable the way that both of you
process things as a family, and it's it's also innovative
because you're also although you're relatable, you're doing things that
people only dream about. Doing. First of all, respond to that, like,
what what does that mean? When I say to you,
(01:42):
how do you feel? When I say you're living a
lot of people's dream.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's surreal for me. We have discussions about that very
thing on a pretty regular basis because for us on
all of this really has been a dream come true.
And I think, you know, we felt called to do
what it is that we've done, and it's God that's
really seen us through. And you know, looking back for
(02:08):
that reason, I think it's just kind of been surreal.
It's a big risk for us to leave familiarity and
take on a new chapter in our lives, and it's
just it's been a tremendous, tremendous buzzing. It really has been.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, yeah, agreed. We live very conventional lives before.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, start with that where were you before? Because when
I say dream, it's like, this could be my dream.
I woke up in the middle of the night and
I go, man, babe, I just had an incredible dream.
What was it? We moved to northern Idaho, thirty miles
from the nearest gas station, started homeschooling the kids and
(02:45):
homesteading with the most beautiful mountains are the Sawtooth Mountains.
What are they call it?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
They are the Purcell Mountains, the Selkirk Mountains and the
Cabinet Mountains. We are surrounded by mountains, three different ranges.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, so, babe, I had this incredible dream. Three different
mountain ranges in northern I are and we're living our
lives there. What are we doing? Well, we're still vlogging
and have a podcast, and you guys are living that dream.
So start Melissa with the conventional life before. Where were
you before so we can get to where you are now.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
We were right outside of Portland, Oregon, and Jeremy was
a police officer and didn't love that because it was
just this daily grind and we were getting by, but
we couldn't get ahead, and times were getting funny for
police officers during that time. Yeah, there was a lot
(03:35):
of cultural stuff going on. And my biggest fear for him, well,
I saw him start to almost despise the job, and
I felt guilty as a stay at home mom that
he was going to a job that he didn't like
and that was dangerous. And then when I saw police
officers being in prison for doing their job, that was
my greatest fear. And I thought, I have to get
(03:56):
him out of this because we're just depending on him only,
and he had so much weight on his shoulders. And
I thought, well, there's a thing called YouTube and other
people are doing it, and maybe I could do it
because I raise rabbits. So I started making rabbit videos.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's how this started.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, you're living a conventional life, like in every sense
of the word, and you're what did you say, you're
you're getting by but not getting ahead. Yeah, and you're
in Portland, Oregon, which, by the way, the last time
I was there, when we played a show at the
Palace Theater or something something like that, I remember looking
out of the window of my bus and there was
(04:41):
a homeless man laying right outside the door with a
needle and is stuck in his arm and is the
curb was his pillow and he was dead asleep, so
that when we came out of the bus to go
into the venue, we had to step over him. So
that's that's the kind of the setting. You're outside of
Portland barely, Yeah, living a very unknown lifestyle as a
(05:05):
police officer, and how many kids at the time we
had four? And you thought I'd make I raised rabbits
so we could do YouTube well.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
We started having this drive to become more self sufficient.
I don't know why. In twenty twelve, I just decided
we need to start learning to grow our own food
and raise our own meat. We only had an acre,
so we started raising meat rabbits, which was very weird
at the time. People are like, you're gonna eat bunnies
and we're like, well, we can't have cattle, and chickens
are kind of gross. We did a couple hundred chickens
(05:36):
and we thought so I started raising rabbits. We had
a big garden. We turned our yard into this food forest,
and then we wanted to do more. We were like,
we need twenty acres. One acre isn't going to do it.
And so we knew we needed to leave that area
because it was so expensive, and I just thought, I'll
teach people how to raise rabbits. So I was making
(05:57):
dozens of dollars on YouTube, and he was like, you
were wasting your time. This is never going to do anything.
Please stop making these embarrassing rabbit videos because like people
at his work, we're being like and this is how
you take the hide off, and these are meat bananas
sometimes good times. Yeah, I just thought this is the path, Like,
this is the way?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
What did you think?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I thought it was crazy. I literally thought it was
a waste of time. I remember I recall conversations that
we were having at home, like we can find better
things to be doing with our time that will probably
be more fruitful. But it we enjoyed doing it. It's
what we were passionate about at the time, and so
we just kind of kept going. She posted a video
about how to process a meat rabbit. Didn't really check
(06:41):
on it for a few weeks, and by the time
we went back, we had YouTube asking us if we
wanted to be monetized, and the video had like a
million views, and so all of a sudden we saw
some potential in it. We're like, hey, maybe we can
devote a little more time, some you know, additional resources
to this and just see what happens. It'd be great
to cover a bill on a monthly basis, or you know,
be able to cover our groceries what have you. And
it just kind of took on a life of its
(07:02):
own from there.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, what kind of police officer were you?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I was at a patrol officer for ten years and
then I needed a break. I was burnt out with
chagging nine to one one calls and going to the
same house as repeatedly dealing with the same offenders, the
same people. So I left the road and became a
school resource officer. Did that for additional three years, which
was a great assignment. I actually genuinely enjoyed doing that.
It was great just interacting with the kids on a
(07:27):
day to day basis and then feeling as well as
having an impact on these very young, malleable minds.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
So Kentucky Ballistics Daniel Arms from Arms Family homestead. He left.
He was a Oklahoma State trooper state trooper, which is funny.
Lunkers TV Rob Turkla is he's back in the He's
back in the police academy now, So there there is
(07:55):
a connection between being a police officer and a YouTuber. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I watched Daniel's specif for a really long time, and
of course I was drawing to his content given that
we had, you know, this shared profession in common, and
was able to have a couple of full conversations with
him prior to us deciding to leave law enforcement and
devote ourselves to YouTube. So he was a huge source
of inspiration for us with what it is we were
desiring to do. But it is really interesting. There are
a lot of people with law enforcement backgrounds that somehow
(08:20):
managed to work their way.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Into YouTube trying to figure out how to get out.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, so okay, so get me to the getting out.
So now in the world do you get to Idaho
from here? This sounds impossible?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, Well, we had this retirement plan of retiring in
Idaho because we just thought it was a beautiful area
and we felt that it was a very safe area
to do the whole homestead. We're kind of prepper minded
and we just like diving into stuff like that, like, hey,
no matter what happens, you could have this safe little homestead.
And it was kind of a bug out property for us. Okay,
(08:52):
And we thought ten year plan, fifteen year plan, maybe
we sell it. If the we probably would have ended
up selling it if we hadn't done YouTube, because prices
went up so high during the pandemic. Yeah, And we
had this property for about six months totally off grid
field in the middle of nowhere, no water to it,
just nothing, and I was like, we should move to it,
(09:15):
we should just and He's just what are you talking about.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
She's making all these kind of decisions, which are crazy decisions,
very bold woman.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
They were, they were nuts, but I just felt like
God was calling us out there. We called it the
Promised Land, and we just I called him at work
one day and I said, I think we should go
and we should YouTube it and we'll just I mean,
I was like, I made eight hundred dollars last month
on YouTube, and I'm like, it's not going to go
(09:44):
down if we go there, it'll only go up. So
maybe we could figure out some other stuff, like we
can get by, we'll live in the trailer, we'll sell
the house. And he's just like, uh okay, and like
two weeks later he quit his job. It was basically
like we were running on adrenaline in faith and I
don't know why. We just both felt like that's what
(10:05):
we were supposed to go do. But it was insane
looking back at it.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, that's wild, man, I mean that is just Daniel
Arms didn't even do it that way. He had to
get to a certain amount of income. And two but
during the pandemic, all of us did crazy things. And
do you think, actually, if you think there wasn't a pandemic.
Do you think you would have been motivated to to
(10:30):
make that leap.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I don't know. I think that the desire definitely would
have been there. I don't know that we actually would
have followed through, though, But.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
We didn't go till April of twenty twenty, and it
hadn't actually started.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
When we left True House.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So when we started doing showings like it all happened
the same week, and then it felt very meant to be,
like we're supposed to get out of here, and so
we felt like because we didn't even know what it
was at that time, we didn't know how serious it was.
Remember the first initial reports were really scared. Knew how
serious or not serious it was, and we thought like,
(11:05):
if this turns into bolop, will be out in the mountains.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Did you guys get vaccinated?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
No?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Did your Did your department require it?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I don't know if they ultimately did. I know a
lot of agencies in within Washington State did. I wasn't
willing to do that and take that risk, so that
would have been something that we would have had to
confront head on at some point. I assume I don't
think they required it, but.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
There are people I know that are in eastern Oregon
that want to be part of Idaho. Yes, they want
to secede from from.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The greater Greater Idaho movement.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yep. Yeah, I also know I have some dear friends
that have to travel the world with that. They're in
Campus Valley, Oregon, down down south, and so there's and
it's the same in California. Yes, you get in New York,
you get all these people that are kind of trapped
in a state that's led by the ideas of the city,
the liberal city that is pushing people out. And it's
(12:02):
it's a shame because Oregon is an incredibly beautiful state.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It is.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so it's California, so it's New York. In Texas,
we feel that same pressure out of the city of Austin.
And and so you're gonna get a trailer. You're going
to go to the Promised Land, the Promised Land, and
all the people in Idaho are like, no more Oregon
people stay out, you know, But you guys are going,
(12:27):
we're gonna, We're gonna do this. So at what point
did you start to formulate the idea of homesteading and
homeschooling And we're not just gonna We're not gonna make
a slight jump. We're going all in, neck deep. We're
going thirty miles. You told me earlier from the nearest
gas station. Where did all that come from?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
The land we bought, we've I never actually thought we'd
live on it. I thought like, this is just really beautiful.
It's a great investment. It's somewhere to put cash that
we've been saving our whole lives. And so when we
moved out there, it did feel very remote. We had
already homeschooleder that's what we did. I was a public
school teacher before, and then when I had my daughter,
(13:14):
I didn't want to put her in the system because
being someone who experienced it, I thought this doesn't fit
all kids, and I feel like I could probably do better.
I would know my kids better, and so I quit teaching.
I called my principal from the hospital and said I'm
not coming back, which stinks because it was August and
(13:34):
she's like, what am I going to do for a
kindergarten teacher. I'm like, oh't no, I'm not coming back.
And I never did. So we had always homeschooled, so
that was an easy transition.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Okay, okay, and so.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We weren't uprooting our kids from schools and these big
friend groups. So that was an easier decision to make
because if you have kids that are plugged into schools
and programs and sports, you're now changing their whole lives.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So what about sports now? Are their sports involved with
your kids?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, they do gymnastics. Novella. Our oldest is now eighteen
years old, but she I told you she plays guitar,
has done music her entire life. Our youngest son, Eli,
is actually really into bull riding somehow. That's kind of
taken on the life of its own as well. But
he's been doing little rodeo events in northern Idaho and
had a lot of fun with that. But they each
(14:22):
get to choose one thing that they want to devote
themselves to when it comes to extracurricular activities, and.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So they have because it costs fifty dollars just to
get to their place because fuel, for sure, that's a.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Fact, especially in the winter time. Yeah, it's definitely it's
challenging when you're homeschool. There's challenges that go with that.
It's it's not like, oh, they have every opportunity like
you're kind of lying to yourself if you say that
it is different and they are more isolated, and they
have a smaller friend group and they get to pick
one activity, and it's just the reality of it. I'm
(14:55):
not going to say it's perfect.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Well, there's also a big difference. We built this house
here that we're in, and we lived in the trailer
in the barn, so there's a little bit of a
parallel with the Smiths and you guys there except for
one huge difference in it's three letters the I why
do you build that house?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
We built the overwhelming majority of it. Yeah, the structure itself.
We had things like plumbing an electric that we're done
just because I'm not real familiar with the code, so
we just brought in contractors to take care of that
aspect of it. But pretty much everything else, you know,
we put up all the walls and did all the
sheet rock, dryer wall. Yeah, there's a lot of work
every day.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
A lot.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
How self sustaining is this home?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It needs to be better. So we're going to start
doing solar projects and things this year.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
But I have no doubt you will.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
We're totally self sustained with water. We have a huge garden,
big food storage. So it's pretty much just power we
need to improve at this point.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Do you think solar's to take it for this so far?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's what we're doing. Yeah, that's our plan for this year.
That's our big infrastructure project that we're gonna be working on.
It's gonna be a big solar array. You know, We've
considered like propeane generators as well, but I think solar
for us ultimately is is gonna be the ticket. Yeah,
so to making sure that we can provide for ourselves
when we have to do.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You get a little bit of anxiety thinking like it's
not there yet and if something hits, you know, if
the world goes down in flames, and yeah, we were
almost there but we didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's always kind of in the back of our minds,
which is the reason we're prioritizing it this year. It's
just been such a long journey to get to this point.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, definitely. We felt more of that when
we were in the trailer. It's like, oh, jeez, if
everything went down now, like we're stuck in this trailer.
So it was night one, we're sleeping in the trailer.
We had no home. There was like we had burned
the ships. There was no going back. He quit his job.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So we're in this tiny trailer. How big was the trailer?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Twenty four fet It was a twenty six.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Twenty six feet. It wasn't like one of those big
fifth wheels or anything. It was not eight And it
was like night one. It was freezing cold, and the
water pump broke. It froze and water just poured throughout
the trailer night one, and I thought, what are we doing?
Like so the very next day we started building the
tiny home in the shop. Okay, I was like, we
(17:19):
can't do this. This isn't fair to the kids. So
there's guilt and stuff that goes along with that. It's like,
are we living our dream? Are we just being crazy?
Are we going to have to go back with our
tails tucked? Beg for you to do that?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Nine months in the trailer, it's doable.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
As a parent, though, your dream is their dream. They
don't get to have a dream, yeah, not yet at least.
How old were they at the time.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Oh gosh, theil was thirteen. Yeah was thirteen.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think thirteen year olds don't get dreams.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
She's along with the ride.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, she wasn't along for the rids.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
She get thirteen ten eight and four or five.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, he was little, yeah, was four.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
We were in uh we were paralleling you guys, and
around the same time. And so although we didn't have
the the Idaho winters and we were in.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
A barn that was you had Texas summers.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And we had Texas summers though, lots of scorpions and
crickets and daddy long legs. Fascinating because you said burn
the ships. That's a that is what we think is
something Cortes said or did at one point in my life.
I looked that up and we're not sure, like, no
(18:34):
one's really sure if Cortes did that story. But it's
so romantic that he you know, he hit the shores
and he said, we ain't going back to Spain. I'm
burning the ships down. So that all you could commit
to the new cause, because if I don't burn the ships,
then you'll think there's a chance if it gets bad enough,
or if something if we get sick enough, or whatever happens,
(18:56):
we could always pull the cord here, pull the parashue
and jump in the ships and go back to Spain
and Cortes burned them so that you have to commit,
and you guys committed.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, we had to sell the house and everything. We thought,
should we rent it out? No, because it's too easy
to go back. So I heard this advice, if you
really want to succeed at something, put yourself in a
place where you cannot fail, like if you fail, you're
gonna die and so and then that's how you succeed,
because it's sheer desperation. You will just keep going. And
we had the kids depending.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yes, it's a ba set, it's a philosophy, and it
became our driving force behind getting everything done. I mean
we'd wake up on days. We had a composing toilet
system that we use for two and a half years.
It was not fun, it was not easy. I was
responsible for that task and it just like I said,
it was just a mentality of no matter what, state committed,
Like you said, keep going for.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What was it? It was a five gallon bucket system
of rotating five gallon buckets that had to be cleaned
out on a day to day.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Basis with pine shavings. It was much those fancy composting.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So I would literally dispose of everything on the far
or far end of the property, which was a long walk,
especially when we had two feet of stow on the ground.
And that was our life for two and a half years.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
We called it the walk of shame.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So you're walking poop literally through the snow. Yeah, man,
what a story to tell the kids.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
You had the burden of the entire family in those buckets.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
So you say composting, But what I mean is that
like improving the land or did you act did it?
Or you just dumping it?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It was being dumped, So it's technically composted down since
you know, over the past couple of years. So yeah,
it's composting in place we went planting. Plant the tree
there one day?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Maybe don't let's just say we don't garden over there.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's it's on the far far end of the property.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Man.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
As crazy as it sounds, though, I love that, And
I remember, I remember our time was such a special
time living in that RV because, for one, we were
just so in tune with the weather, with nature. If
it was raining, we all knew it. If it was hot,
we all knew it. If the temperature was dropping, we
all knew it. If if there was a bat that
(21:06):
got in the barn and the dogs were chasing her,
we all knew it. If there were you know, if
a skunk made it into the barn, which happened, we
all knew it. And and I there's a part of
me that laments that living in a house that's you know,
kind of air conditioned in the insulated walls, and you
you don't is it raining outside? Is it dark outside?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I didn't know it's it's already dark in the r V,
you know everything.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yep, that sounds so familiar. I actually missed that era,
that period of time. For as as miserable as it
as it was at times, I relished in just the
adventure of it. And kind of like you're saying, yeah,
you you were very familiar and aware of everything that
was happening. And I missed that as well. You become
too comfortable when you have a nice house and you
don't go outside, heated.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Go outside play and so the kids played more.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
They the same.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
So the next question is are our AI relationships more fulfilling?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
We'll take a break and I'm gonna get to this.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
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(23:49):
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to do it is cameo dot com slash granger Smith
cameo dot com granger Smith. You could order a video
message from me saying whatever customizable message you want me
to say, Happy birthday, happy anniversary, maybe a word of encouragement,
(24:10):
whatever it might be. I think it's a pretty good gift,
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Get them a cameo from me at cameo dot com
slash granger Smith.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
So I mentioned are AI relationships more fulfilling? What's the
argument on that? This is an episode of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
You guys did it is? What does stem from?
Speaker 3 (24:32):
It was a people developing those AI like actual love
relationships and compatibility relationships, which is so crazy. But I
think we do that with our content creators too, or
our podcasters would become very attached to these online personalities.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I have been kind of like preaching this to my
band and crew for at least a decade, and for
a while they were like, you're grainder yourself stupid. Would
you stop talking about this? But as we as we
talk about AI and this interesting thing to think about,
as you're like homesteading and you're you're so far from
(25:08):
the danger of these things. I believe wholeheartedly that first,
you know, AI will be in robotics, and we all
know it's going to be doing laundry and cleaning houses
and mowing the grass and shuttling cars back and forth.
(25:28):
I understand all that. And ELI is saying that every
house will have one, and I agree with them. I
think it's going to be eventually, it's gonna be like
cell phones and it'll it'll really help when you're talking
about like elderly and childcare. Even though it sounds horrifying
right now, it's coming. But I think the thing that
most people are missing, it's this your episode. I think
(25:51):
what people are missing is people will develop relationships with
these AI personalities and this will be a huge demise
to the human population.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Agreed. Yeah, yeah, I think there is definitely an element
of evil to it. That's my personal take.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, well, we were just talking about the Elon worship,
which I know that maybe this makes me very unpopular.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I feel like when Elon Musk kind of came to
the other side, right he joined the Trump team, everyone
got really excited to have him. Like Elon Musk, He's
a witchest man in the world. He's so smart, and
now he's dancing at Trump rallies and everybody rallied around
him without asking any questions. And he is such an
advocate for the AI, even though he'll go on a
(26:37):
Joe Rogan podcast and talk about how dangerous it is,
but he's pushing it, and it's I are we not
questioning what his actual motives are? Can we trust this man?
Just because he's at Trump rallies. Does that mean that
we need to put all of our support and trust
behind him? Or is what he's ushering in dangerous and evil?
And is it? I mean, it's clearly it's not of God,
(27:00):
not natural, it's not what God intended for mankind. So
why are we all just like Elon?
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Look at him.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I saw him dancing to that point, and he was
like doing the fist pump in the air, and suddenly
I saw him in a new light. When I saw that,
I was like, oh, he Like, he's the guy in
high school that's like no one has ever noticed him
and right, and all of a sudden, this is although
he's had more money than anyone in the world, and
he's had, you know, incredible platforms, he's never had a
(27:31):
crowd of people screaming for him, and all of a sudden,
you could just see the kid in him.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
He's like, oh, this is great elation.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I feel the same with like the zuck you know,
Mark Zuckerberger was always this nerd and now all of
a sudden, he's on Joe Rogan and he's feeling really
cool and he's getting invited to sit at the cool
kid table and he loves it. But we have to
question those motives still because you have to remember what
they just did in the past and what they want
to usher in in the future. I mean, his whole
(27:59):
platform is called meta or are we not worried about
this for the human race and for the human soul?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah? So you guys have a very successful vlog in podcast.
How are you uploading these videos using starlink? That's that's
what I thought You're gonna say. That's interesting, right? It is?
Love it or hate it?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
It? Useful me? Wrong? Absolutely, It's an incredible innovation, for sure.
I'm not trying to take that away from that. I
just think, yeah, I think the whole concept of AI,
especially when you start talking about human integration, just for
me again personally, I think there's an element of evil
to it, and it's it's terrifying. I think it should
be to most of us.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
At what point would you pull the plug on the
public presence that you have? And I know you've thought
about this, yes, I know you've thought, like, I'm not
truly off the grid until I'm also off the Internet.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I think the response is gonna be different for each
of us.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Okay, Yeah, well, I think Jeremy would shoot the writer tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I absolutely would and walk away from all of it.
But before you.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Go, what would what would cause that?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I just crave purity and simplicity and it was a
big part of the motivation for me to want to
move my family where where we did with where we are,
and I do feel like the the interwebs, if you will,
take take from that. So I'm not again incredible technology
and innovation, but I think it takes away from everything
(29:36):
it is that I desired for myself and my kids
and relocating my family, the blessing and the curse.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yes, yeah, Like you're a blogger as well, so you
realize when you go on a vacation and you're just
trying to take something in, but yet you need to
make the vlog there is That's I think that's a
hard thing for the audience to hear too, because they're like,
wait a minute. But as the person who's doing it,
or you're watching your kid blow their birthday candles out
(30:02):
and you're trying to get the right shot of that,
you sort of miss it in real life. So we'll
literally have we'll sing happy Birthday, and then we'll do
it again for the camera, because I want to see
my son blow his birthday candles out in your real life.
So or we'll go on a vacation and five days
are for filming in five days, no cameras.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
WHOA, So it makes sense strategic.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, you have to be or it will. When you
vlog your life, it can become all consuming and everything
becomes content and now your real life is a show
and you miss your children growing up.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
But that's that's a maturity that a lot of people
don't get to in a short amount of time. How
did you get to that?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I just had this innate internal sense of I guess
it's all it's going to be subjective, But for us,
it's like, yeah, we don't want to interfere with our
family's reality. You only have one got it raising your children,
and we want to make sure that we are as
present as possible for every moment ideally, And so you know,
cameras have a tendency due to interfere with that. And
(31:10):
I always tell her it's like, I don't want to
be making memories through the lens of a camera. I
want to make sure that I'm making memories for myself. Yeah,
it's an ongoing battle.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
It's very beginning. We would have our kids say certain things,
or we would do these little skits that were fun
and the audience loved them and they were clearly skits,
but our kids were having to play these roles. And
then we finally just decided we used to do this
happy dance thing. And then one time we got in
a fight over it because he was like, no, you're
not like gyrating right or something. I don't remember what
(31:41):
it was, but we had to keep redoing it, and
then we got into an argument. Our kids were standing
there like staring at us argue over the happy dance,
and that was the last time we ever happy dance.
People would bring back the dance were like, never, the
dance is dead. The dance coused to fight.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
So that is such good parenting. That's such a good
foresight to to prioritize their mental health. Because I'm a woggert.
We're not saying none of us are saying that vogging
is bad or it's it's unhealthy. Uh, We're just saying
it's it's good to have limits and to prioritize certain things.
(32:19):
For this might be an example for me. I've filmed.
I have filmed many blowing out birthday candles. But I
also genuinely love cameras and filming and storytelling. Maybe that's
part of the old songwriter in me and the current
(32:39):
sermon writer in me. I love storytelling and I love
one of the ways I like to do it is
through a lens, and so I don't feel Amber does,
though she feels just like you. She's like, I don't
want to do this, and I'm like, hey, never you
ever have to vlog if you don't want to, And
so I don't. She hasn't done it a long time.
(33:01):
But I am like, I love. I love filming, and
especially love now the collection of videos that we've put out.
That we get to watch these home videos, yes, in
a way that we just wouldn't have And so there's
a there's a plus and a negative. And I love
(33:21):
the way you guys are just thinking through what's what's
the priority here?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, it's just all about boundaries and balance. But
I'm with you. I ironically enough, I love having all
of those memories to look back upon them, just seeing
the kids get older over time, you know, with our
home build and seeing everything it is that we managed
to pull off for ourselves. It's they're so incredibly precious
to me. They're like highly polished home videos. So I
love having that it's just in your day to day
(33:47):
life and routine. When it comes specifically to the kids,
it's like, I want to make sure that we're setting
those boundaries and doing what I just personally feels right
for Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
If it were just us, I don't think that we
would have that these same tortured conversations. But yeah, kids absolutely,
it's always about their privacy.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And we'll link these videos in description and I would
encourage people listening right now, if you're not watching, to
go to the YouTube version of this episode and comment
what your thoughts are on this. And we've talked about
several different things, and I think vlogging that being the
(34:23):
least of these things, but more importantly probably homesteading and
the journey off.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
The grid, which is where you guys are head.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So cool, and I would love to continue to touch
base with you guys and see others journeys going until
one day I text you and you go, we're off, man,
that was it? Or you just don't answer because you
literally don't have cell phones.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Shot the router. Yeah, without Wi Fi calling, there is
no calling phone.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
It's fascinating. Can you guys help me answer some questions
on here?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
For sure?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
This is what we do typically on this podcast, and
this first one, and by the way, these man just
got me these like five minutes ago before we started recording,
five minutes before we started recording this one. First one
from Samantha and says Haig Grander, a close friend of
mine and I had a falling out for something pretty small.
(35:16):
But now it feels like our relationship and our friendship
is hanging by a thread. I want to fix things,
but I don't even know where to start. I'm afraid
it might just make things worse. How do you handle
disagreements with friends and know if it's worth trying to
repair their relationship?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Samantha, That'd be a tough one for me to answer.
I would say it's definitely worthwhile. I'm not always the
best when it comes to forgiveness. Let's say, so what
do you got, Mama?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
So you're a grudge folder?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
You agree with that?
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, Jeremy, when he draws a line, it's a hard
line and it's permanent, and so it's something that we
talk about and I think you'll continue to work.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
On maybe I'm a work in progress. I would say
it is worthwhile one, so it is it is worth
the effort, and I will heed my own advice here. Yeah,
it is worthwhile to put in that effort to maintain
those relationships or repair those relationships because ultimately, that's h
That's all we have in the end, right is your
loved ones, your friends and family. So definitely a worth
while investment.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, I'm going to say if something really caused a
big riff that was small, there was probably some stuff
that happened earlier that caused something little to cause something
to mountain, you know, turn into a mountain. So probably
look at what caused those little irritations in the beginning,
(36:36):
and whether or not your friendship is compatible or what
what was the problems? What's the actual problem, because it's
probably not what the small argument.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
It gets small.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So one of the part of a question is I
don't know where to start because she might make things worse.
Do you have people like this in your life right now?
Like when I read the question from Samantha, do you think, oh, yeah,
I know that guy.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, for sure?
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Is it because of the home setting thing. Is it
because of the move from Oregon or no different?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
No?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, yeah, yours is more childhood based.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Oh before that, yeah, this long standing family stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, Jeremy's had to kind of protect himself from the
time he was a little kid, so his experience is different.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
So defense mechanism. I know that I'm a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So the host setting thing, it's getting even more complex
now when you think of it in that way, it.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Allows you to isolate yourself exactly. Yeah, where you don't
have to integrate. It's so easy to just pull back
and live in this little comfort bubble. We're both extreme introverts.
Usually an introvert, Mary is an extrovert, and the extrovert
encourages the introvert to get out there and patch up relationships.
And when it's two introverts and our comfort place is
(37:50):
to pull back, we do that and then we tell
each other that's good. So that could be dangerous. Yeah,
we're like, this is cozy. We love living in our
our acorn and and in there we stay like a
little squirrel family.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
So how in the world do you reconcile what you
just said with going out and getting podcasts and going
to Nashville and Dallas and now Austin. What do you guys? Yeah,
how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
It's a weird thing because it's not that we are
like so withdrawn that we don't like interacting with people.
We actually love having these types of conversations, having an
opportunity to speak with you and amer today. We love people,
we love getting to know people, but we also relish
our privacy and having our own little cocoon of our
own rules that we get to set for ourselves. I
(38:41):
guess you could say, but there's a.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Lot of bloggers like that. Have you experienced that? Yeah,
that are total introverts, very different.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yes, so you're you're right alongside Samantha going, I don't
know where to start?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Is that what you're saying? I would say, I have
an idea about maybe where you could start, but it's
not always easy to get there. Whereas and where do
you start by reaching out? You know, having those tough conversations,
potentially apologizing, saying sorry, expressing the love that you have
for your your friend or family member. Yeah, again I
(39:15):
would I would have to heed my own advice.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Here, But do you know what's hard is apologizing without
passing the blame at all. Yes, because we have a
tendency to say I'm sorry you feel that way, even
though I you know, I couldn't help it, you know,
like that. We don't always say it that way, but
(39:37):
that's kind of what we think.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, it's very disingenuous.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, so you don't what I have to learn. Interesting.
This is an interesting lesson for me. Uh it. This
is a recent lesson that I could do someone wrong
when there actually isn't something morally wrong with what I did,
but it could have been in the judgment of the
(40:04):
situation that started the whole thing in the first place. So,
for instance, here's an analogy. I could take Lincoln to
the zoo and then take him into the guerrilla cage
and then grab him harshly and say let's go, we
have to get out of here. And when I do
(40:25):
that to Lincoln, that's not wrong of me to be
very intense and grab him and say we have to go,
we have to get out of here. It's nothing wrong morally.
In fact, you would say you need to do that,
But the problem was the wisdom and taking him into
the grilla cage in the very beginning. So I could
have put in that situation, apologize to him and say
I was wrong knowing me getting him out of the
(40:48):
grilla cage. There was nothing wrong with that, it was
the wisdom. And so it's hard to apologize without bringing
yourself into it at all. Samantha might be there, Oh
maybe you are.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Maybe so, maybe Samantha is helping you.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Maybe she thank you, Samantha.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah. I think it's just human nature to want to
defend yourself too. So anytime that you feel like you're
being targeted or someone's attacking you, you want to defend
yourself and you want to say I did this even
though it was bad. Yeah, I did this because you
made me or it was your actions that caused me
to behave this way. Yes, even though that's not necessarily
it's truth. The way you react is on you.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Do you have a do you have a spot where
you guys sit at your place and kind of look
at the mountain, the different mountain ranges and just think,
this is this is life, This is unwinding everywhere.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
But I'd say, our slider in our living room, it's
just slider. It's a big, just living room slider. It's
our primary entry into and out of our home and
we gaze out at a beautiful, sheer, rocky mountain face
that we have there.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I think going out with the horses is our online time.
There's something about horses because they're so simple, but they're
so complex. And when you just go out there and
just sit with them and watch them and the mountains
are there, that's where it's like the rest of the
world shuts off. You can be so stressed out and
it'll be like, let's go see the horses.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Soothing.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Can I ask a question that this is not an indictment,
but I'm kind of asking, like the rhetorical question of
all the listeners right now, what can you possibly be
stressed out about? In northern Idaho, thirty miles from the
gas station.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
We're incredibly blessed. Don't get me wrong. Our stresses are
so insignificant to so many others. But we have, you know,
just some self imposed stress. I think it's more just
our own mentality and the pressures that we put on
ourselves is probably the primary source of our stress.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
So would you tell people that, oh, you can escape it.
A life has its burdens because of this following world
we live in, and even going to northern Idaho and
building a house and enjoying all the mountain ranges. You
can't escape it.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah, maybe if you were fully retired, or you were
you won the lottery or something, maybe you really could escape.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
And I don't know, you know the answer. You're saying
that it's not true. It's not true.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I know it's not.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, let's get someone right here that won the lottery
and ask and they would say, no, I got problems.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know if you can ever
escape it. I think we do a lot of it
to ourselves, with our own self imposed deadlines and schedules
and expectations. And when is enough enough? That's the age
old question. So when you work for yourself, that's something
(43:48):
that you have to just decide, otherwise it takes over
and you just keep working. And I think that's probably where.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It's not situational or based on your setting. You're not
gonna you know, you're not gonna be able to ease
those burdens based on a place. Yeah, there's there are
other means of hopefully pursuing and achieving that piece.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
You guys have the uber driver problem. This is what
this is what I think when I'm right with an
uber driver, I'm always like, how do you stop? Like,
if you're out, how do you not get one more ride?
And then one more ride and then one more ride?
And that's kind of the problem you guys have.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, one more video, sure, one more.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Guest, one more podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, very true.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
It's scary to not to not enjoy the very life
you escaped too.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yes, I see that a lot with people that do
content creation. Is when you're in control of your own
destiny sort of say, like you know your own business,
but it's your life, those lines get so blurred. You
have to go into it making hard decisions. Otherwise you'll
(45:03):
lose control, you'll lose yourself.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Our biggest battle is contentment.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Yeah, finding contentment.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
That's because you have red blood and you are have
a heart beating, and you're human.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Amen. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I remember in the music days, touring, it was it
was so easy to take one more tour date or
one more tour date, and so I would decide my
brother was my manager, which is, you know, by God's grace,
Tyler would help me through this, even though he you know,
managers make a significant amount of touring, so it's hard
for him too, but I would be like, hey, you know,
(45:40):
we're gonna take off December. And every time I would
say it, we're gonna take off December and January sometimes,
but every time I would say that, an offer would
come in on December fifteenth that paid more than we'd
ever made the whole year. And so then you're up
against this dilemmas. Then you start compromising, like, well, it's
just one date. See you called the bay and they're like, well,
(46:01):
once my wife and I was anniversary and we I
kind of thought we were off December and so we
were gonna, you know, had a nice dinner planned. And
I'm like, you know, but but this will you know,
I'll give you a bonus because this and you just
never that never ends. And it's not just touring, it's
in it. It's content creation, it's taking another uber ride. Yes,
(46:24):
even in the beautiful northern Idaho.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, very true. We are not immune.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
It doesn't seem to matter if you change your environment.
We're still humans. We still have those human tendencies in
that fallen nature of wanting more.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Would you recommend people to homeschool their kids, Yes.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
I would. I'm very passionate for homeschool because I think
kids are built so differently, especially little boys. Little boys
are little boys, and I think it's so important to
let them be And the classroom environment, especially kindergarten first grade,
is just not set up for little boys. It was
designed for little girls. And if you look at the
psychology of the classroom, it's very and then it becomes
(47:05):
very military. You stand in line for your lunch, you
have to raise your hand to go to the bathroom.
You have to stand in Little Rose. You learn in
Little Rose, you don't speak out a term. And I mean,
now the schools are kind of they've kind of lost
control of that. But that's not good either.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
So well, what to that point. I've studied a little
bit of the Commanches that they were the tribe that
ruled where we are right now, Like if it was
eighteen thirty, we would be dead, because they ruled this land.
And they were the most brilliant that the most effective
(47:45):
warhorse tribe that we know of that has ever been
on the face of the earth. They were incredible. It's
an amazing study. The Comanches are unbelievable. And one thing
that they did was day let their little boys be boys.
They didn't put them in any kind of school until
(48:05):
they were about thirteen, when they were becoming a man.
They would go with the different men of the tribe,
which is also interesting something we don't do. We just
have dads today. But they would have the father and
the rest of the tribe and they would take that
boy and they would take everything that he learned and
harness it, harness all that wild energy and focus it.
(48:28):
And these men were incredible warriors. So the boys would fight.
They would ride horses at like three years old, like
Maverick's age. They would be on horseback on little ponies.
They would be shooting blunt arrows. They would fight each other.
They would punch you, you know, give each other black eyes.
They would swim, and they would the tribe would just
let the boys go. Yeah, that's the opposite of what
(48:50):
you just said about elementary school kids.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Yeah, they tell they tell kids to you know, hold
that question or don't ask questions out of term. Like
my little boy has a million in one questions. And
you know Maverick too, He's just chatting the whole time
and he has so many incredible things to say. And
I feel like we lose that as we get older
because it's trained out of us. We have to conform
to survive in the school environment. And when you just
(49:15):
let him be wild, they become these curious, innovative little
kids and they keep that. What they have at three
years old they still have at thirteen, and they're interested
in all kinds of weird stuff, and no one ever
tells him they're weird. So are nine And well, he
just turned ten. He's into some different things, and he does,
(49:37):
in a way struggle to find friends his own age
because he'll start talking about like the history of bulls
and yeah, just like really funny things. And he's really
into engineering and rockets and he's all over the place.
But when he tries to talk to another ten year
old about it, they'll be like, you're weird, and then
he goes, am I weird, But he doesn't. He didn't
(50:00):
ever consider himself weird, just curious.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
So people that can't see you right now, and even
if they can, you're behind the table, but you're very pregnant, yes,
and you do not know this baby, if it's a
boy or girl, might just be a little warrior in
there or a very special woman.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
I think that it's a little boy.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
You think it's a little lawyer in there, Okay, a
little Idaho wild boy running through those rivers.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Wild boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Well, I'd like to have you guys on again and
then we'll know.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Maybe I'll just come visit you guys. Maybe that's now,
Hey man, maybe we'll do that. Maybe Okay, maybe we'll
go visit. But hey, thank you guys so much for
sharing incredible wisdom. And it's just I love the journey
you're on and like I said, it's just like you're
living a dream and I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Thanks for sure.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Thank you, Yeah, thank you guys. Thanks for joining me
on the Granger Smith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that
little like button and notification spell so that you never
miss anytime I upload a video.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yi
Well, this is a special episode of the podcast, and
I'm I am so glad that you two are with me.
First of all, and I didn't plan this. I didn't
wake up this morning and think that I was going
to have you as guest on the podcast. But Jeremy
and Melissa, you came up to my house from Idaho
(00:31):
long ways to record a podcast with Amber and I
and your podcast New World, Old Soul, and it's it's
actually fantastic and very practical, and it is it's it's
from the perspective of good simple living.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I guess you could.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Say, correct.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I think that's accurate.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Which is the vlog that you guys also have a
family vlog. And I'm fascinated by your story though, And
so as we were kind of setting up for your
podcast here at the house, I said, Hey, do you
want to get on my podcast? And you want to
join me because I think a lot of people could
benefit from your wisdom and the way that you process things,
(01:20):
because a it's relatable the way that both of you
process things as a family, and it's it's also innovative
because you're also although you're relatable, you're doing things that
people only dream about. Doing. First of all, respond to that, like,
what what does that mean? When I say to you,
(01:42):
how do you feel? When I say you're living a
lot of people's dream.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's surreal for me. We have discussions about that very
thing on a pretty regular basis because for us on
all of this really has been a dream come true.
And I think, you know, we felt called to do
what it is that we've done, and it's God that's
really seen us through. And you know, looking back for
(02:08):
that reason, I think it's just kind of been surreal.
It's a big risk for us to leave familiarity and
take on a new chapter in our lives, and it's
just it's been a tremendous, tremendous buzzing. It really has been.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, yeah, agreed. We live very conventional lives before.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, start with that where were you before? Because when
I say dream, it's like, this could be my dream.
I woke up in the middle of the night and
I go, man, babe, I just had an incredible dream.
What was it? We moved to northern Idaho, thirty miles
from the nearest gas station, started homeschooling the kids and
(02:45):
homesteading with the most beautiful mountains are the Sawtooth Mountains.
What are they call it?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
They are the Purcell Mountains, the Selkirk Mountains and the
Cabinet Mountains. We are surrounded by mountains, three different ranges.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, so, babe, I had this incredible dream. Three different
mountain ranges in northern I are and we're living our
lives there. What are we doing? Well, we're still vlogging
and have a podcast, and you guys are living that dream.
So start Melissa with the conventional life before. Where were
you before so we can get to where you are now.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
We were right outside of Portland, Oregon, and Jeremy was
a police officer and didn't love that because it was
just this daily grind and we were getting by, but
we couldn't get ahead, and times were getting funny for
police officers during that time. Yeah, there was a lot
(03:35):
of cultural stuff going on. And my biggest fear for him, well,
I saw him start to almost despise the job, and
I felt guilty as a stay at home mom that
he was going to a job that he didn't like
and that was dangerous. And then when I saw police
officers being in prison for doing their job, that was
my greatest fear. And I thought, I have to get
(03:56):
him out of this because we're just depending on him only,
and he had so much weight on his shoulders. And
I thought, well, there's a thing called YouTube and other
people are doing it, and maybe I could do it
because I raise rabbits. So I started making rabbit videos.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's how this started.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, you're living a conventional life, like in every sense
of the word, and you're what did you say, you're
you're getting by but not getting ahead. Yeah, and you're
in Portland, Oregon, which, by the way, the last time
I was there, when we played a show at the
Palace Theater or something something like that, I remember looking
out of the window of my bus and there was
(04:41):
a homeless man laying right outside the door with a
needle and is stuck in his arm and is the
curb was his pillow and he was dead asleep, so
that when we came out of the bus to go
into the venue, we had to step over him. So
that's that's the kind of the setting. You're outside of
Portland barely, Yeah, living a very unknown lifestyle as a
(05:05):
police officer, and how many kids at the time we
had four? And you thought I'd make I raised rabbits
so we could do YouTube well.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
We started having this drive to become more self sufficient.
I don't know why. In twenty twelve, I just decided
we need to start learning to grow our own food
and raise our own meat. We only had an acre,
so we started raising meat rabbits, which was very weird
at the time. People are like, you're gonna eat bunnies
and we're like, well, we can't have cattle, and chickens
are kind of gross. We did a couple hundred chickens
(05:36):
and we thought so I started raising rabbits. We had
a big garden. We turned our yard into this food forest,
and then we wanted to do more. We were like,
we need twenty acres. One acre isn't going to do it.
And so we knew we needed to leave that area
because it was so expensive, and I just thought, I'll
teach people how to raise rabbits. So I was making
(05:57):
dozens of dollars on YouTube, and he was like, you
were wasting your time. This is never going to do anything.
Please stop making these embarrassing rabbit videos because like people
at his work, we're being like and this is how
you take the hide off, and these are meat bananas
sometimes good times. Yeah, I just thought this is the path, Like,
this is the way?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
What did you think?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I thought it was crazy. I literally thought it was
a waste of time. I remember I recall conversations that
we were having at home, like we can find better
things to be doing with our time that will probably
be more fruitful. But it we enjoyed doing it. It's
what we were passionate about at the time, and so
we just kind of kept going. She posted a video
about how to process a meat rabbit. Didn't really check
(06:41):
on it for a few weeks, and by the time
we went back, we had YouTube asking us if we
wanted to be monetized, and the video had like a
million views, and so all of a sudden we saw
some potential in it. We're like, hey, maybe we can
devote a little more time, some you know, additional resources
to this and just see what happens. It'd be great
to cover a bill on a monthly basis, or you know,
be able to cover our groceries what have you. And
it just kind of took on a life of its
(07:02):
own from there.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, what kind of police officer were you?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I was at a patrol officer for ten years and
then I needed a break. I was burnt out with
chagging nine to one one calls and going to the
same house as repeatedly dealing with the same offenders, the
same people. So I left the road and became a
school resource officer. Did that for additional three years, which
was a great assignment. I actually genuinely enjoyed doing that.
It was great just interacting with the kids on a
(07:27):
day to day basis and then feeling as well as
having an impact on these very young, malleable minds.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
So Kentucky Ballistics Daniel Arms from Arms Family homestead. He left.
He was a Oklahoma State trooper state trooper, which is funny.
Lunkers TV Rob Turkla is he's back in the He's
back in the police academy now, So there there is
(07:55):
a connection between being a police officer and a YouTuber. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I watched Daniel's specif for a really long time, and
of course I was drawing to his content given that
we had, you know, this shared profession in common, and
was able to have a couple of full conversations with
him prior to us deciding to leave law enforcement and
devote ourselves to YouTube. So he was a huge source
of inspiration for us with what it is we were
desiring to do. But it is really interesting. There are
a lot of people with law enforcement backgrounds that somehow
(08:20):
managed to work their way.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Into YouTube trying to figure out how to get out.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, so okay, so get me to the getting out.
So now in the world do you get to Idaho
from here? This sounds impossible?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, Well, we had this retirement plan of retiring in
Idaho because we just thought it was a beautiful area
and we felt that it was a very safe area
to do the whole homestead. We're kind of prepper minded
and we just like diving into stuff like that, like, hey,
no matter what happens, you could have this safe little homestead.
And it was kind of a bug out property for us. Okay,
(08:52):
And we thought ten year plan, fifteen year plan, maybe
we sell it. If the we probably would have ended
up selling it if we hadn't done YouTube, because prices
went up so high during the pandemic. Yeah, And we
had this property for about six months totally off grid
field in the middle of nowhere, no water to it,
just nothing, and I was like, we should move to it,
(09:15):
we should just and He's just what are you talking about.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
She's making all these kind of decisions, which are crazy decisions,
very bold woman.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
They were, they were nuts, but I just felt like
God was calling us out there. We called it the
Promised Land, and we just I called him at work
one day and I said, I think we should go
and we should YouTube it and we'll just I mean,
I was like, I made eight hundred dollars last month
on YouTube, and I'm like, it's not going to go
(09:44):
down if we go there, it'll only go up. So
maybe we could figure out some other stuff, like we
can get by, we'll live in the trailer, we'll sell
the house. And he's just like, uh okay, and like
two weeks later he quit his job. It was basically
like we were running on adrenaline in faith and I
don't know why. We just both felt like that's what
(10:05):
we were supposed to go do. But it was insane
looking back at it.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, that's wild, man, I mean that is just Daniel
Arms didn't even do it that way. He had to
get to a certain amount of income. And two but
during the pandemic, all of us did crazy things. And
do you think, actually, if you think there wasn't a pandemic.
Do you think you would have been motivated to to
(10:30):
make that leap.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I don't know. I think that the desire definitely would
have been there. I don't know that we actually would
have followed through, though, But.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
We didn't go till April of twenty twenty, and it
hadn't actually started.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
When we left True House.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So when we started doing showings like it all happened
the same week, and then it felt very meant to be,
like we're supposed to get out of here, and so
we felt like because we didn't even know what it
was at that time, we didn't know how serious it was.
Remember the first initial reports were really scared. Knew how
serious or not serious it was, and we thought like,
(11:05):
if this turns into bolop, will be out in the mountains.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Did you guys get vaccinated?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
No?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Did your Did your department require it?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I don't know if they ultimately did. I know a
lot of agencies in within Washington State did. I wasn't
willing to do that and take that risk, so that
would have been something that we would have had to
confront head on at some point. I assume I don't
think they required it, but.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
There are people I know that are in eastern Oregon
that want to be part of Idaho. Yes, they want
to secede from from.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The greater Greater Idaho movement.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yep. Yeah, I also know I have some dear friends
that have to travel the world with that. They're in
Campus Valley, Oregon, down down south, and so there's and
it's the same in California. Yes, you get in New York,
you get all these people that are kind of trapped
in a state that's led by the ideas of the city,
the liberal city that is pushing people out. And it's
(12:02):
it's a shame because Oregon is an incredibly beautiful state.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It is.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so it's California, so it's New York. In Texas,
we feel that same pressure out of the city of Austin.
And and so you're gonna get a trailer. You're going
to go to the Promised Land, the Promised Land, and
all the people in Idaho are like, no more Oregon
people stay out, you know, But you guys are going,
(12:27):
we're gonna, We're gonna do this. So at what point
did you start to formulate the idea of homesteading and
homeschooling And we're not just gonna We're not gonna make
a slight jump. We're going all in, neck deep. We're
going thirty miles. You told me earlier from the nearest
gas station. Where did all that come from?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
The land we bought, we've I never actually thought we'd
live on it. I thought like, this is just really beautiful.
It's a great investment. It's somewhere to put cash that
we've been saving our whole lives. And so when we
moved out there, it did feel very remote. We had
already homeschooleder that's what we did. I was a public
school teacher before, and then when I had my daughter,
(13:14):
I didn't want to put her in the system because
being someone who experienced it, I thought this doesn't fit
all kids, and I feel like I could probably do better.
I would know my kids better, and so I quit teaching.
I called my principal from the hospital and said I'm
not coming back, which stinks because it was August and
(13:34):
she's like, what am I going to do for a
kindergarten teacher. I'm like, oh't no, I'm not coming back.
And I never did. So we had always homeschooled, so
that was an easy transition.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Okay, okay, and so.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We weren't uprooting our kids from schools and these big
friend groups. So that was an easier decision to make
because if you have kids that are plugged into schools
and programs and sports, you're now changing their whole lives.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So what about sports now? Are their sports involved with
your kids?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, they do gymnastics. Novella. Our oldest is now eighteen
years old, but she I told you she plays guitar,
has done music her entire life. Our youngest son, Eli,
is actually really into bull riding somehow. That's kind of
taken on the life of its own as well. But
he's been doing little rodeo events in northern Idaho and
had a lot of fun with that. But they each
(14:22):
get to choose one thing that they want to devote
themselves to when it comes to extracurricular activities, and.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So they have because it costs fifty dollars just to
get to their place because fuel, for sure, that's a.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Fact, especially in the winter time. Yeah, it's definitely it's
challenging when you're homeschool. There's challenges that go with that.
It's it's not like, oh, they have every opportunity like
you're kind of lying to yourself if you say that
it is different and they are more isolated, and they
have a smaller friend group and they get to pick
one activity, and it's just the reality of it. I'm
(14:55):
not going to say it's perfect.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Well, there's also a big difference. We built this house
here that we're in, and we lived in the trailer
in the barn, so there's a little bit of a
parallel with the Smiths and you guys there except for
one huge difference in it's three letters the I why
do you build that house?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
We built the overwhelming majority of it. Yeah, the structure itself.
We had things like plumbing an electric that we're done
just because I'm not real familiar with the code, so
we just brought in contractors to take care of that
aspect of it. But pretty much everything else, you know,
we put up all the walls and did all the
sheet rock, dryer wall. Yeah, there's a lot of work
every day.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
A lot.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
How self sustaining is this home?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It needs to be better. So we're going to start
doing solar projects and things this year.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
But I have no doubt you will.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
We're totally self sustained with water. We have a huge garden,
big food storage. So it's pretty much just power we
need to improve at this point.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Do you think solar's to take it for this so far?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's what we're doing. Yeah, that's our plan for this year.
That's our big infrastructure project that we're gonna be working on.
It's gonna be a big solar array. You know, We've
considered like propeane generators as well, but I think solar
for us ultimately is is gonna be the ticket. Yeah,
so to making sure that we can provide for ourselves
when we have to do.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You get a little bit of anxiety thinking like it's
not there yet and if something hits, you know, if
the world goes down in flames, and yeah, we were
almost there but we didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's always kind of in the back of our minds,
which is the reason we're prioritizing it this year. It's
just been such a long journey to get to this point.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, definitely. We felt more of that when
we were in the trailer. It's like, oh, jeez, if
everything went down now, like we're stuck in this trailer.
So it was night one, we're sleeping in the trailer.
We had no home. There was like we had burned
the ships. There was no going back. He quit his job.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So we're in this tiny trailer. How big was the trailer?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Twenty four fet It was a twenty six.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Twenty six feet. It wasn't like one of those big
fifth wheels or anything. It was not eight And it
was like night one. It was freezing cold, and the
water pump broke. It froze and water just poured throughout
the trailer night one, and I thought, what are we doing?
Like so the very next day we started building the
tiny home in the shop. Okay, I was like, we
(17:19):
can't do this. This isn't fair to the kids. So
there's guilt and stuff that goes along with that. It's like,
are we living our dream? Are we just being crazy?
Are we going to have to go back with our
tails tucked? Beg for you to do that?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Nine months in the trailer, it's doable.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
As a parent, though, your dream is their dream. They
don't get to have a dream, yeah, not yet at least.
How old were they at the time.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Oh gosh, theil was thirteen. Yeah was thirteen.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think thirteen year olds don't get dreams.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
She's along with the ride.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, she wasn't along for the rids.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
She get thirteen ten eight and four or five.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, he was little, yeah, was four.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
We were in uh we were paralleling you guys, and
around the same time. And so although we didn't have
the the Idaho winters and we were in.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
A barn that was you had Texas summers.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And we had Texas summers though, lots of scorpions and
crickets and daddy long legs. Fascinating because you said burn
the ships. That's a that is what we think is
something Cortes said or did at one point in my life.
I looked that up and we're not sure, like, no
(18:34):
one's really sure if Cortes did that story. But it's
so romantic that he you know, he hit the shores
and he said, we ain't going back to Spain. I'm
burning the ships down. So that all you could commit
to the new cause, because if I don't burn the ships,
then you'll think there's a chance if it gets bad enough,
or if something if we get sick enough, or whatever happens,
(18:56):
we could always pull the cord here, pull the parashue
and jump in the ships and go back to Spain
and Cortes burned them so that you have to commit,
and you guys committed.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, we had to sell the house and everything. We thought,
should we rent it out? No, because it's too easy
to go back. So I heard this advice, if you
really want to succeed at something, put yourself in a
place where you cannot fail, like if you fail, you're
gonna die and so and then that's how you succeed,
because it's sheer desperation. You will just keep going. And
we had the kids depending.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yes, it's a ba set, it's a philosophy, and it
became our driving force behind getting everything done. I mean
we'd wake up on days. We had a composing toilet
system that we use for two and a half years.
It was not fun, it was not easy. I was
responsible for that task and it just like I said,
it was just a mentality of no matter what, state committed,
Like you said, keep going for.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What was it? It was a five gallon bucket system
of rotating five gallon buckets that had to be cleaned
out on a day to day.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Basis with pine shavings. It was much those fancy composting.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So I would literally dispose of everything on the far
or far end of the property, which was a long walk,
especially when we had two feet of stow on the ground.
And that was our life for two and a half years.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
We called it the walk of shame.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So you're walking poop literally through the snow. Yeah, man,
what a story to tell the kids.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
You had the burden of the entire family in those buckets.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
So you say composting, But what I mean is that
like improving the land or did you act did it?
Or you just dumping it?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It was being dumped, So it's technically composted down since
you know, over the past couple of years. So yeah,
it's composting in place we went planting. Plant the tree
there one day?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Maybe don't let's just say we don't garden over there.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's it's on the far far end of the property.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Man.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
As crazy as it sounds, though, I love that, And
I remember, I remember our time was such a special
time living in that RV because, for one, we were
just so in tune with the weather, with nature. If
it was raining, we all knew it. If it was hot,
we all knew it. If the temperature was dropping, we
all knew it. If if there was a bat that
(21:06):
got in the barn and the dogs were chasing her,
we all knew it. If there were you know, if
a skunk made it into the barn, which happened, we
all knew it. And and I there's a part of
me that laments that living in a house that's you know,
kind of air conditioned in the insulated walls, and you
you don't is it raining outside? Is it dark outside?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I didn't know it's it's already dark in the r V,
you know everything.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yep, that sounds so familiar. I actually missed that era,
that period of time. For as as miserable as it
as it was at times, I relished in just the
adventure of it. And kind of like you're saying, yeah,
you you were very familiar and aware of everything that
was happening. And I missed that as well. You become
too comfortable when you have a nice house and you
don't go outside, heated.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Go outside play and so the kids played more.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
They the same.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
So the next question is are our AI relationships more fulfilling?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
We'll take a break and I'm gonna get to this.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
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(22:28):
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to say, Happy birthday, happy anniversary, maybe a word of encouragement,
(24:10):
whatever it might be. I think it's a pretty good gift,
especially for people you just don't know how to buy for.
Get them a cameo from me at cameo dot com
slash granger Smith.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
So I mentioned are AI relationships more fulfilling? What's the
argument on that? This is an episode of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
You guys did it is? What does stem from?
Speaker 3 (24:32):
It was a people developing those AI like actual love
relationships and compatibility relationships, which is so crazy. But I
think we do that with our content creators too, or
our podcasters would become very attached to these online personalities.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I have been kind of like preaching this to my
band and crew for at least a decade, and for
a while they were like, you're grainder yourself stupid. Would
you stop talking about this? But as we as we
talk about AI and this interesting thing to think about,
as you're like homesteading and you're you're so far from
(25:08):
the danger of these things. I believe wholeheartedly that first,
you know, AI will be in robotics, and we all
know it's going to be doing laundry and cleaning houses
and mowing the grass and shuttling cars back and forth.
(25:28):
I understand all that. And ELI is saying that every
house will have one, and I agree with them. I
think it's going to be eventually, it's gonna be like
cell phones and it'll it'll really help when you're talking
about like elderly and childcare. Even though it sounds horrifying
right now, it's coming. But I think the thing that
most people are missing, it's this your episode. I think
(25:51):
what people are missing is people will develop relationships with
these AI personalities and this will be a huge demise
to the human population.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Agreed. Yeah, yeah, I think there is definitely an element
of evil to it. That's my personal take.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, well, we were just talking about the Elon worship,
which I know that maybe this makes me very unpopular.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I feel like when Elon Musk kind of came to
the other side, right he joined the Trump team, everyone
got really excited to have him. Like Elon Musk, He's
a witchest man in the world. He's so smart, and
now he's dancing at Trump rallies and everybody rallied around
him without asking any questions. And he is such an
advocate for the AI, even though he'll go on a
(26:37):
Joe Rogan podcast and talk about how dangerous it is,
but he's pushing it, and it's I are we not
questioning what his actual motives are? Can we trust this man?
Just because he's at Trump rallies. Does that mean that
we need to put all of our support and trust
behind him? Or is what he's ushering in dangerous and evil?
And is it? I mean, it's clearly it's not of God,
(27:00):
not natural, it's not what God intended for mankind. So
why are we all just like Elon?
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Look at him.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I saw him dancing to that point, and he was
like doing the fist pump in the air, and suddenly
I saw him in a new light. When I saw that,
I was like, oh, he Like, he's the guy in
high school that's like no one has ever noticed him
and right, and all of a sudden, this is although
he's had more money than anyone in the world, and
he's had, you know, incredible platforms, he's never had a
(27:31):
crowd of people screaming for him, and all of a sudden,
you could just see the kid in him.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
He's like, oh, this is great elation.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I feel the same with like the zuck you know,
Mark Zuckerberger was always this nerd and now all of
a sudden, he's on Joe Rogan and he's feeling really
cool and he's getting invited to sit at the cool
kid table and he loves it. But we have to
question those motives still because you have to remember what
they just did in the past and what they want
to usher in in the future. I mean, his whole
(27:59):
platform is called meta or are we not worried about
this for the human race and for the human soul?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah? So you guys have a very successful vlog in podcast.
How are you uploading these videos using starlink? That's that's
what I thought You're gonna say. That's interesting, right? It is?
Love it or hate it?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
It? Useful me? Wrong? Absolutely, It's an incredible innovation, for sure.
I'm not trying to take that away from that. I
just think, yeah, I think the whole concept of AI,
especially when you start talking about human integration, just for
me again personally, I think there's an element of evil
to it, and it's it's terrifying. I think it should
be to most of us.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
At what point would you pull the plug on the
public presence that you have? And I know you've thought
about this, yes, I know you've thought, like, I'm not
truly off the grid until I'm also off the Internet.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I think the response is gonna be different for each
of us.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Okay, Yeah, well, I think Jeremy would shoot the writer tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I absolutely would and walk away from all of it.
But before you.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Go, what would what would cause that?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I just crave purity and simplicity and it was a
big part of the motivation for me to want to
move my family where where we did with where we are,
and I do feel like the the interwebs, if you will,
take take from that. So I'm not again incredible technology
and innovation, but I think it takes away from everything
(29:36):
it is that I desired for myself and my kids
and relocating my family, the blessing and the curse.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yes, yeah, Like you're a blogger as well, so you
realize when you go on a vacation and you're just
trying to take something in, but yet you need to
make the vlog there is That's I think that's a
hard thing for the audience to hear too, because they're like,
wait a minute. But as the person who's doing it,
or you're watching your kid blow their birthday candles out
(30:02):
and you're trying to get the right shot of that,
you sort of miss it in real life. So we'll
literally have we'll sing happy Birthday, and then we'll do
it again for the camera, because I want to see
my son blow his birthday candles out in your real life.
So or we'll go on a vacation and five days
are for filming in five days, no cameras.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
WHOA, So it makes sense strategic.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, you have to be or it will. When you
vlog your life, it can become all consuming and everything
becomes content and now your real life is a show
and you miss your children growing up.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
But that's that's a maturity that a lot of people
don't get to in a short amount of time. How
did you get to that?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I just had this innate internal sense of I guess
it's all it's going to be subjective, But for us,
it's like, yeah, we don't want to interfere with our
family's reality. You only have one got it raising your children,
and we want to make sure that we are as
present as possible for every moment ideally, And so you know,
cameras have a tendency due to interfere with that. And
(31:10):
I always tell her it's like, I don't want to
be making memories through the lens of a camera. I
want to make sure that I'm making memories for myself. Yeah,
it's an ongoing battle.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
It's very beginning. We would have our kids say certain things,
or we would do these little skits that were fun
and the audience loved them and they were clearly skits,
but our kids were having to play these roles. And
then we finally just decided we used to do this
happy dance thing. And then one time we got in
a fight over it because he was like, no, you're
not like gyrating right or something. I don't remember what
(31:41):
it was, but we had to keep redoing it, and
then we got into an argument. Our kids were standing
there like staring at us argue over the happy dance,
and that was the last time we ever happy dance.
People would bring back the dance were like, never, the
dance is dead. The dance coused to fight.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
So that is such good parenting. That's such a good
foresight to to prioritize their mental health. Because I'm a woggert.
We're not saying none of us are saying that vogging
is bad or it's it's unhealthy. Uh, We're just saying
it's it's good to have limits and to prioritize certain things.
(32:19):
For this might be an example for me. I've filmed.
I have filmed many blowing out birthday candles. But I
also genuinely love cameras and filming and storytelling. Maybe that's
part of the old songwriter in me and the current
(32:39):
sermon writer in me. I love storytelling and I love
one of the ways I like to do it is
through a lens, and so I don't feel Amber does,
though she feels just like you. She's like, I don't
want to do this, and I'm like, hey, never you
ever have to vlog if you don't want to, And
so I don't. She hasn't done it a long time.
(33:01):
But I am like, I love. I love filming, and
especially love now the collection of videos that we've put out.
That we get to watch these home videos, yes, in
a way that we just wouldn't have And so there's
a there's a plus and a negative. And I love
(33:21):
the way you guys are just thinking through what's what's
the priority here?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, it's just all about boundaries and balance. But
I'm with you. I ironically enough, I love having all
of those memories to look back upon them, just seeing
the kids get older over time, you know, with our
home build and seeing everything it is that we managed
to pull off for ourselves. It's they're so incredibly precious
to me. They're like highly polished home videos. So I
love having that it's just in your day to day
(33:47):
life and routine. When it comes specifically to the kids,
it's like, I want to make sure that we're setting
those boundaries and doing what I just personally feels right
for Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
If it were just us, I don't think that we
would have that these same tortured conversations. But yeah, kids absolutely,
it's always about their privacy.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And we'll link these videos in description and I would
encourage people listening right now, if you're not watching, to
go to the YouTube version of this episode and comment
what your thoughts are on this. And we've talked about
several different things, and I think vlogging that being the
(34:23):
least of these things, but more importantly probably homesteading and
the journey off.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
The grid, which is where you guys are head.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So cool, and I would love to continue to touch
base with you guys and see others journeys going until
one day I text you and you go, we're off, man,
that was it? Or you just don't answer because you
literally don't have cell phones.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Shot the router. Yeah, without Wi Fi calling, there is
no calling phone.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
It's fascinating. Can you guys help me answer some questions
on here?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
For sure?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
This is what we do typically on this podcast, and
this first one, and by the way, these man just
got me these like five minutes ago before we started recording,
five minutes before we started recording this one. First one
from Samantha and says Haig Grander, a close friend of
mine and I had a falling out for something pretty small.
(35:16):
But now it feels like our relationship and our friendship
is hanging by a thread. I want to fix things,
but I don't even know where to start. I'm afraid
it might just make things worse. How do you handle
disagreements with friends and know if it's worth trying to
repair their relationship?
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Samantha, That'd be a tough one for me to answer.
I would say it's definitely worthwhile. I'm not always the
best when it comes to forgiveness. Let's say, so what
do you got, Mama?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
So you're a grudge folder?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
You agree with that?
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, Jeremy, when he draws a line, it's a hard
line and it's permanent, and so it's something that we
talk about and I think you'll continue to work.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
On maybe I'm a work in progress. I would say
it is worthwhile one, so it is it is worth
the effort, and I will heed my own advice here. Yeah,
it is worthwhile to put in that effort to maintain
those relationships or repair those relationships because ultimately, that's h
That's all we have in the end, right is your
loved ones, your friends and family. So definitely a worth
while investment.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, I'm going to say if something really caused a
big riff that was small, there was probably some stuff
that happened earlier that caused something little to cause something
to mountain, you know, turn into a mountain. So probably
look at what caused those little irritations in the beginning,
(36:36):
and whether or not your friendship is compatible or what
what was the problems? What's the actual problem, because it's
probably not what the small argument.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
It gets small.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So one of the part of a question is I
don't know where to start because she might make things worse.
Do you have people like this in your life right now?
Like when I read the question from Samantha, do you think, oh, yeah,
I know that guy.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, for sure?
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Is it because of the home setting thing. Is it
because of the move from Oregon or no different?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
No?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, yeah, yours is more childhood based.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Oh before that, yeah, this long standing family stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, Jeremy's had to kind of protect himself from the
time he was a little kid, so his experience is different.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
So defense mechanism. I know that I'm a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So the host setting thing, it's getting even more complex
now when you think of it in that way, it.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Allows you to isolate yourself exactly. Yeah, where you don't
have to integrate. It's so easy to just pull back
and live in this little comfort bubble. We're both extreme introverts.
Usually an introvert, Mary is an extrovert, and the extrovert
encourages the introvert to get out there and patch up relationships.
And when it's two introverts and our comfort place is
(37:50):
to pull back, we do that and then we tell
each other that's good. So that could be dangerous. Yeah,
we're like, this is cozy. We love living in our
our acorn and and in there we stay like a
little squirrel family.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
So how in the world do you reconcile what you
just said with going out and getting podcasts and going
to Nashville and Dallas and now Austin. What do you guys? Yeah,
how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
It's a weird thing because it's not that we are
like so withdrawn that we don't like interacting with people.
We actually love having these types of conversations, having an
opportunity to speak with you and amer today. We love people,
we love getting to know people, but we also relish
our privacy and having our own little cocoon of our
own rules that we get to set for ourselves. I
(38:41):
guess you could say, but there's a.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Lot of bloggers like that. Have you experienced that? Yeah,
that are total introverts, very different.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yes, so you're you're right alongside Samantha going, I don't
know where to start?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Is that what you're saying? I would say, I have
an idea about maybe where you could start, but it's
not always easy to get there. Whereas and where do
you start by reaching out? You know, having those tough conversations,
potentially apologizing, saying sorry, expressing the love that you have
for your your friend or family member. Yeah, again I
(39:15):
would I would have to heed my own advice.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Here, But do you know what's hard is apologizing without
passing the blame at all. Yes, because we have a
tendency to say I'm sorry you feel that way, even
though I you know, I couldn't help it, you know,
like that. We don't always say it that way, but
(39:37):
that's kind of what we think.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, it's very disingenuous.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, so you don't what I have to learn. Interesting.
This is an interesting lesson for me. Uh it. This
is a recent lesson that I could do someone wrong
when there actually isn't something morally wrong with what I did,
but it could have been in the judgment of the
(40:04):
situation that started the whole thing in the first place. So,
for instance, here's an analogy. I could take Lincoln to
the zoo and then take him into the guerrilla cage
and then grab him harshly and say let's go, we
have to get out of here. And when I do
(40:25):
that to Lincoln, that's not wrong of me to be
very intense and grab him and say we have to go,
we have to get out of here. It's nothing wrong morally.
In fact, you would say you need to do that,
But the problem was the wisdom and taking him into
the grilla cage in the very beginning. So I could
have put in that situation, apologize to him and say
I was wrong knowing me getting him out of the
(40:48):
grilla cage. There was nothing wrong with that, it was
the wisdom. And so it's hard to apologize without bringing
yourself into it at all. Samantha might be there, Oh
maybe you are.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Maybe so, maybe Samantha is helping you.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Maybe she thank you, Samantha.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah. I think it's just human nature to want to
defend yourself too. So anytime that you feel like you're
being targeted or someone's attacking you, you want to defend
yourself and you want to say I did this even
though it was bad. Yeah, I did this because you
made me or it was your actions that caused me
to behave this way. Yes, even though that's not necessarily
it's truth. The way you react is on you.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Do you have a do you have a spot where
you guys sit at your place and kind of look
at the mountain, the different mountain ranges and just think,
this is this is life, This is unwinding everywhere.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
But I'd say, our slider in our living room, it's
just slider. It's a big, just living room slider. It's
our primary entry into and out of our home and
we gaze out at a beautiful, sheer, rocky mountain face
that we have there.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I think going out with the horses is our online time.
There's something about horses because they're so simple, but they're
so complex. And when you just go out there and
just sit with them and watch them and the mountains
are there, that's where it's like the rest of the
world shuts off. You can be so stressed out and
it'll be like, let's go see the horses.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Soothing.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Can I ask a question that this is not an indictment,
but I'm kind of asking, like the rhetorical question of
all the listeners right now, what can you possibly be
stressed out about? In northern Idaho, thirty miles from the
gas station.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
We're incredibly blessed. Don't get me wrong. Our stresses are
so insignificant to so many others. But we have, you know,
just some self imposed stress. I think it's more just
our own mentality and the pressures that we put on
ourselves is probably the primary source of our stress.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
So would you tell people that, oh, you can escape it.
A life has its burdens because of this following world
we live in, and even going to northern Idaho and
building a house and enjoying all the mountain ranges. You
can't escape it.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah, maybe if you were fully retired, or you were
you won the lottery or something, maybe you really could escape.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
And I don't know, you know the answer. You're saying
that it's not true. It's not true.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I know it's not.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, let's get someone right here that won the lottery
and ask and they would say, no, I got problems.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know if you can ever
escape it. I think we do a lot of it
to ourselves, with our own self imposed deadlines and schedules
and expectations. And when is enough enough? That's the age
old question. So when you work for yourself, that's something
(43:48):
that you have to just decide, otherwise it takes over
and you just keep working. And I think that's probably where.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It's not situational or based on your setting. You're not
gonna you know, you're not gonna be able to ease
those burdens based on a place. Yeah, there's there are
other means of hopefully pursuing and achieving that piece.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
You guys have the uber driver problem. This is what
this is what I think when I'm right with an
uber driver, I'm always like, how do you stop? Like,
if you're out, how do you not get one more ride?
And then one more ride and then one more ride?
And that's kind of the problem you guys have.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, one more video, sure, one more.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Guest, one more podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, very true.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
It's scary to not to not enjoy the very life
you escaped too.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yes, I see that a lot with people that do
content creation. Is when you're in control of your own
destiny sort of say, like you know your own business,
but it's your life, those lines get so blurred. You
have to go into it making hard decisions. Otherwise you'll
(45:03):
lose control, you'll lose yourself.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Our biggest battle is contentment.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Yeah, finding contentment.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
That's because you have red blood and you are have
a heart beating, and you're human.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Amen. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I remember in the music days, touring, it was it
was so easy to take one more tour date or
one more tour date, and so I would decide my
brother was my manager, which is, you know, by God's grace,
Tyler would help me through this, even though he you know,
managers make a significant amount of touring, so it's hard
for him too, but I would be like, hey, you know,
(45:40):
we're gonna take off December. And every time I would
say it, we're gonna take off December and January sometimes,
but every time I would say that, an offer would
come in on December fifteenth that paid more than we'd
ever made the whole year. And so then you're up
against this dilemmas. Then you start compromising, like, well, it's
just one date. See you called the bay and they're like, well,
(46:01):
once my wife and I was anniversary and we I
kind of thought we were off December and so we
were gonna, you know, had a nice dinner planned. And
I'm like, you know, but but this will you know,
I'll give you a bonus because this and you just
never that never ends. And it's not just touring, it's
in it. It's content creation, it's taking another uber ride. Yes,
(46:24):
even in the beautiful northern Idaho.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, very true. We are not immune.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
It doesn't seem to matter if you change your environment.
We're still humans. We still have those human tendencies in
that fallen nature of wanting more.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Would you recommend people to homeschool their kids, Yes.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
I would. I'm very passionate for homeschool because I think
kids are built so differently, especially little boys. Little boys
are little boys, and I think it's so important to
let them be And the classroom environment, especially kindergarten first grade,
is just not set up for little boys. It was
designed for little girls. And if you look at the
psychology of the classroom, it's very and then it becomes
(47:05):
very military. You stand in line for your lunch, you
have to raise your hand to go to the bathroom.
You have to stand in Little Rose. You learn in
Little Rose, you don't speak out a term. And I mean,
now the schools are kind of they've kind of lost
control of that. But that's not good either.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
So well, what to that point. I've studied a little
bit of the Commanches that they were the tribe that
ruled where we are right now, Like if it was
eighteen thirty, we would be dead, because they ruled this land.
And they were the most brilliant that the most effective
(47:45):
warhorse tribe that we know of that has ever been
on the face of the earth. They were incredible. It's
an amazing study. The Comanches are unbelievable. And one thing
that they did was day let their little boys be boys.
They didn't put them in any kind of school until
(48:05):
they were about thirteen, when they were becoming a man.
They would go with the different men of the tribe,
which is also interesting something we don't do. We just
have dads today. But they would have the father and
the rest of the tribe and they would take that
boy and they would take everything that he learned and
harness it, harness all that wild energy and focus it.
(48:28):
And these men were incredible warriors. So the boys would fight.
They would ride horses at like three years old, like
Maverick's age. They would be on horseback on little ponies.
They would be shooting blunt arrows. They would fight each other.
They would punch you, you know, give each other black eyes.
They would swim, and they would the tribe would just
let the boys go. Yeah, that's the opposite of what
(48:50):
you just said about elementary school kids.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Yeah, they tell they tell kids to you know, hold
that question or don't ask questions out of term. Like
my little boy has a million in one questions. And
you know Maverick too, He's just chatting the whole time
and he has so many incredible things to say. And
I feel like we lose that as we get older
because it's trained out of us. We have to conform
to survive in the school environment. And when you just
(49:15):
let him be wild, they become these curious, innovative little
kids and they keep that. What they have at three
years old they still have at thirteen, and they're interested
in all kinds of weird stuff, and no one ever
tells him they're weird. So are nine And well, he
just turned ten. He's into some different things, and he does,
(49:37):
in a way struggle to find friends his own age
because he'll start talking about like the history of bulls
and yeah, just like really funny things. And he's really
into engineering and rockets and he's all over the place.
But when he tries to talk to another ten year
old about it, they'll be like, you're weird, and then
he goes, am I weird, But he doesn't. He didn't
(50:00):
ever consider himself weird, just curious.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
So people that can't see you right now, and even
if they can, you're behind the table, but you're very pregnant, yes,
and you do not know this baby, if it's a
boy or girl, might just be a little warrior in
there or a very special woman.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
I think that it's a little boy.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
You think it's a little lawyer in there, Okay, a
little Idaho wild boy running through those rivers.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Wild boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Well, I'd like to have you guys on again and
then we'll know.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Maybe I'll just come visit you guys. Maybe that's now,
Hey man, maybe we'll do that. Maybe Okay, maybe we'll
go visit. But hey, thank you guys so much for
sharing incredible wisdom. And it's just I love the journey
you're on and like I said, it's just like you're
living a dream and I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Thanks for sure.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Thank you, Yeah, thank you guys. Thanks for joining me
on the Granger Smith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that
little like button and notification spell so that you never
miss anytime I upload a video.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yi
Host
Granger Smith
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