Hey there, darlants. Welcome back to the Roots and Refuge podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Sowers. My friends call me Jess, and I hope you will too. And here on my podcast, we talk about all things homesteading, growing food by raising animals, growing gardens, preserving, preparing, and enjoying that food,

and most importantly, living more mindfully in relationship with each other and with the

earth. Today, my topic at hand is about culture. More specifically, how to create one on purpose. Now, I don't know what it is that led you to the

homesteading life oh maybe it was the romance of seeing someone share their bread baking and

their chickens in the yard or their children running barefoot on an Instagram page,

or maybe it was a book that you picked up at the library.

Maybe you were concerned about food sourcing and just wanted to find a little more independence.

Maybe you got burnt out in the rat race, and you wanted to simplify your life.

There are hundreds of different ways that people come

to this path and to this way of living and they're all very valid. But one thing that I have found

in this life is that it really does come with a distinct culture of being a homesteader. And I mean, I'm sure you could do this without

stumbling upon what happens when a family values hard work or whenever you learn stewardship or any

of these things. But I know for me, the culture of my home, the culture of my family has very much

come up intertwined with a homestead because, I mean, so much of it was built on our homestead.

Now, I know families come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes they are not at all defined by blood.

And I know in our home, we have a blended family. And so it's very much the case of

loving by choice, not out of obligation, but by choice, which is how love is supposed to be in all cases.

But today I'm going to be talking within the framework of talking about my children, talking about my home, talking about my immediate family.

But I hope you know that all of these principles very much apply to families of all sorts.

And for people who are not in the phase of raising young children, these thoughts might not seem as

immediately needed, but truly creating a culture in your home and creating the culture that

you want to live your life through and in and buy.'s going to apply to the friends you choose it's

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