the thing i like most about this story is it's lily you're watching this all right trying to hit
try not to hit the tripod every day is bringing your kid to work day i like about this story is
that it's a classic homestead story so many of you guys are starting out you're looking for raw
land you're looking for something existing to buy and many others of you are just in the grind it
doesn't matter this is the classic homestead story from a very different angle you guys are used to
this you're used to selfie shots and us walking around and filming ourselves so besides being
the classic starting over homestead story this is a story from a third person angle
on one of our favorite people right jess and jeremiah sowers and their wonderful family
from roots and refuge farm this is the angle we're going at normally this is what i do i
hold a camera and i open a door and share a seat at the table of my life with you but this can be a
little bit difficult you know sometimes trying to be present trying to get work done trying to tell
a good story it's hard when you're also trying to be a cameraman and a producer and a director all
in one i'm gonna hand this off to these guys and i'm just gonna live my life in this video
i'm giving you tea shots of episode 2 of wilder still with justin jeremiah this theme is them
starting over from ground zero getting things on the ground it's been a pretty
wild few months of transition but it's starting to feel like home like we live here
it's been a few whirlwind months there's been so much change
it's definitely been a lot of hard work but we knew when we made this move that we were
literally like digging up the root system of our life and transplanting it it was not
going to be the kind of thing that was a trial run or a test we were we were going
another cool thing about this is when you watch roots in refuge it's it's
mainly jessica she does the mostly the media stuff and jeremiah's kind of behind the scenes
really doing a lot on the farm now we get to see more of jeremiah as well we're going to head down
to check out the pigs i got to check on the two breeder mamas that should be having babies any
day these are the two uh pregnant mamas they're the mangalita breed that we raise on our farm
she should have had her piglets already i don't think anything's wrong i think she's just taking
longer than when we were anticipating i moved them out here want to get them away from the other pigs
because i don't know how they're going to behave with piglets i know that these two mamas won't
hurt each other or each other's kids i put them on this particular space because this is actually
going to be the future site of a high tunnel greenhouse so we built the the pen the exact
size of the greenhouse and we're letting them tear the grass up and fertilize it a little bit
so we've got a small herd of goats we downsized uh when we got here we
actually found someone to take a good portion of our herd we've got three alpacas on the farm
uh they're really just novelty uh jessica has always wanted alpacas and so we have them and
they're in the their older age and so they're basically just retired we're not gonna breed them
or do anything with them they're just gonna live out the rest of their days however many that is
you better quit
he's probably not going to stop that's one of the cool things about this third person perspective i
mean you can watch jess's vlogs i mean you can watch our vlogs but there's something special
about when we hand it over to a film crew and they film us other people uh get in the show and you
get that bigger perspective that more holistic perspective that is just priceless beyond that
what i really like about justin germain what they're doing there is they're starting over
and they're starting over in a very regenerative way here's an example with their meat chickens
now we have these birds on grass and we will be moving them in these electric netting
fences and we'll move them every couple of days to new grass they're powered by solar panels and
that makes them super mobile because we don't have to worry about where we're going to plug them in
and obviously that's also energy efficient because we're not having to pay for power by moving them
every day we are growing our birds they're able to forage they're able to eat grass and insects
which makes for healthy happy birds and also we are growing our grass so on a regenerative farm
your grass is one of your greatest commodities your grass and your soil keeping those healthy
means that everything else on your farm is going to be able to thrive
on that grass and in that soil and by moving these birds every couple days they're fertilizing it and
the grass that they leave behind is going to be super lush and something that's very different
than the normal homestead content is jess and jeremy have this bigger dream and one of their
dreams is to confer convert this bring life i shouldn't say convert just bring life to this
amazing little town here's a little glimpse of their village and that town there's an old
downtown area there's so much history here and i'm so wooed by it it's just so romantic to me
and the history i just feel like this whole town is full of stories and they're just
waiting on somebody to care enough about them to learn them and tell them and add to them
from the very beginning of wanting to come to this area we would drive down this little downtown area
it's just a couple of blocks and we would see all these empty stores and we would say well what it
what would it look like for these to be full of life and we know we want to own a coffee shop
and a roasting company we know we want to own a homesteading mercantile where people can come
but i don't just drive through here looking for where our dreams gonna go i imagine this whole
place full of life and lots of dreams coming true here all this this transition this change
it begs the questions well how do the ki how are the kids handling it and jess of course has a
beautiful answer and perspective on that i think probably the hardest part of our transition
is prioritizing being emotionally available for our children because our children
are transitioning it's the largest change they've ever gone through in their life
they amaze me with their resilience even more they amaze me with how
holy they believe what we tell them and when we say hey we're doing this because of legacy
and we're doing this because when you're adults we're gonna have all the opportunity in the world
to give to you they believe us and they're just in jess of course goes into that more and it's a
touching moment it's definitely one of my favorite moments and i complimented the filmmakers on this
next moment it's this casual interview on the swing it feels like we're right there with jessica
i think that's what many of us want from her is and that she would say come have a seat at my
table you know so we're going to have a seat at her table in this case we're going to sit right
behind her while she's swinging looking over this we're going to look over this beautiful
pond together and she's going to cast a vision for us every time i start thinking how are we
going to work this out how are we going to figure this out i come and i sit right here in the swing
i don't have to figure out how to work it out i just have to believe that it's going to be okay
and these dreams that are put in our heart and these things that we feel passionate about
i just have to live my life as if they're important and as if they're
blessed and as if it is something that we're supposed to do and keep first things first
you know the tree in the pond that's really not up to me to make that kind of thing
happen and i feel like all of the dreams that we have kind of fall in that category
building this farm and our learning center and our reach and all the teaching we want
to do it's just the very same as this tree in this pond i don't have to figure out how
that stuff is going to happen i just have to take care of what's right in front of me
so that's just a little bit a little bit of wilder still the new episodes 22 minutes in link that's
the second one so there's a first one too and they're both now streaming on abundance plus
please go there and enjoy it's abundanceplus.com i'll leave the link in the description enjoy