If the COVID-19 pandemic taught the American people anything, it’s that the institutions and systems we have held up and relied upon for decades are deeply flawed. This fact became painfully evident when grocery store shelves emptied, when farmers had to kill excess livestock due to supply chain interruptions, when conveniences that had been taken for granted became the stuff of stress and anxiety, and when the illusion of city life was broken and the allure of a quiet town or country home became so appealing that house prices skyrocketed.
Out in the mountainous western corner of North Carolina, Justin Rhodes experienced something unexpected. Despite his own life having changed dramatically over the past 15 years, during the pandemic, his world remained stable. While the world beyond was in chaos, he continued to milk his cows, tend his garden, butcher his broiler chickens, and watch as the homesteading lifestyle he’d been showcasing for the past four years took off like a rocket.
“Homesteading and working from home is a lot more socially acceptable now,” said Rhodes. “COVID blew up the idea of needing to homestead. People needed to take homesteading seriously.”
‘Entrepreneur Justin’
Long before COVID-19 and Rhodes’s homesteading success, he was already developing and honing his entrepreneurial passions.“Entrepreneur Justin came long before Homesteader Justin,” he said with a chuckle. “I think we’re all born entrepreneurs.”
At 16, Rhodes briefly held what he called his one and only “real job.” Working at the garden section of his local Walmart, Rhodes realized that he not only had a strong dislike for traditional retail, but that working for himself would be far more financially and personally rewarding.
Deciding to start a lawn mowing business but lacking tools, Rhodes worked out a deal with his father whereby he would receive a 20 percent cut of Justin’s earnings in exchange for use of lawn mowing equipment and a pickup truck. Rhodes was soon making more than double the income he was earning stacking shelves at Walmart.
“I’ve never had a normal job since,” Rhodes laughed.
More ventures were to follow. A Saint Bernard breeding business—inspired by the 1992 classic “Beethoven”—helped get Rhodes through college, while a foray into mountain boarding sent him careening down grass-covered hills on what was essentially a snowboard with wheels. Then the family entered the picture.
Family Farm
“I knew that if I were to get a normal job, the kids would have to come with me. We’re raising our kids to become adults, so I’d want them to be around adults. And if they couldn’t come with me, I’d either find another job, create my own job—which I’m more likely to do since I’m an entrepreneur—or live in a cardboard box with my kids.”While Rhodes’s commitment to his family is the driving force behind his entrepreneurial endeavors, it was the curiosity of his wife, Rebekah—whom Rhodes lovingly calls “The Beautiful One”—that got them into homesteading in the first place.
Despite being the third generation to inhabit a 75-acre parcel of family land, Rhodes found himself at a bit of a generational disadvantage. Rhodes’s paternal grandfather, Grandpa Henry, had purchased and worked the land out of necessity during the Great Depression. Rhodes’s father, conversely, decided to take his own life in a different direction and set the farm aside. Despite the generational gap in knowledge, when Rebekah came to Justin with the idea of taking control of their family food system, he jumped right on board.
The couple and their then-young children began buying organic produce, which wasn’t cheap even 15 years ago. Then, one day, a seed rack caught Rhodes’s eye.
“We’re at the grocery store and we’re ringing out all these veggies and meats and nuts and fruits ... Then, out of curiosity, I go and check out this seed rack. And I noticed, as we were checking out, that a bundle of kale cost $3. But over at the seed rack, I noticed I could get a whole seed pack for the same amount, and there’s 100 seeds in it. I knew enough about growing to know that one seed would bring one plant; one bunch of kale. That’s 100 times your money to buy seeds, put it in the ground, and grow more kale for the same amount of money. I thought, why isn’t this shelf empty?”
Justin and Rebekah decided to start a market garden community-supported agriculture (CSA) and sell their produce to friends and anyone else who wanted a share. However, halfway through their first season, a difficult pregnancy made Rebekah unable to continue working the garden. So Rhodes took over the operation of the market farm and found, somewhat to his surprise, that he enjoyed it immensely.
Difficult Days
It was during that time that Rhodes began to change his mindset about food.“I began to realize that food is much more than energy. Food became medicine. And when food became medicine, it became so much more special. It’s my healing. It’s intimate and fulfilling. It became a passion as we began to see it heal us and make us feel better,” Rhodes said.
There was also a financial obligation to fulfill. People had put down money on faith that the CSA would yield a crop. And Rhodes wasn’t about to let anyone down.
Unfortunately, Rhodes’s ongoing battle with chronic Lyme disease forced him to slow everything down on the market farm. Finances became strained. Medical bills and credit card bills piled up. The family was doing absolutely everything they could to survive, renting out a spare bedroom, dumpster diving for food, and living on food assistance.
In the throes of this dark period, Rhodes began to explore options for creating an online business based around his homesteading passion. He decided to create a product that would serve as both an informational video and an ebook about raising chickens using permaculture principles. This was the beginning of Rhodes’s journey into homestead media.
Homestead Media Success
Using Kickstarter and the following he’d developed through his blog, “Abundant Permaculture,” Rhodes was able to raise $35,000 in 30 days to produce “Permaculture Chickens.” From that point onward, the formula of developing rich, enjoyable, free content, utilizing that content to discover a need in the audience, and launching a product that caters to that need has been the key to Rhodes’s continued success.Following this methodology didn’t just work well on the blog. Rhodes is perhaps best known for the vlog in which he documents his life on the homestead. He couldn’t have foreseen, when he first picked up his camera, the effect the decision to vlog would have on his life.
“It scratched an itch and took off,” said Rhodes. “We’re at this moment where you can have an audience on your phone. We have the possibility of a network in our back pocket.”
Invoking the memory of Grandpa Henry, Rhodes continued: “You’ve got to take advantage of modern technology. If a door of opportunity opens before you and you don’t walk through it, you’re crazy.”
Though Rhodes certainly found his calling in this medium, one thing neither he nor Rebekah expected was the community that would build around their business.
“People were inspired to start homesteading, but it was always just a business for us. We never expected to create a community around it,” Rhodes said. “Humans need satisfaction. You’re either working for your dream or someone else’s. If you’re working for someone else’s dream, you need to be behind that dream. If you’re not behind that dream, you need to start your own.”
Rhodes’s encouragement to come home and center yourself around family has resonated with thousands of people and will continue to resonate with thousands more as he continues to milk cows, plant seeds, and preach the wisdom of the ages to a modern audience.
