13 Years Living Off the Land - Man Shares REAL Homestead Experience

Peter from TreeEater Farm & Nursery (http://treeeaternursery.com/) in BC shares the challenges and lessons learned from his experience earning a living off the land for 13 years with his partner Magdalene. Peter moved to a piece of land in British Columbia's Gulf Islands as an idealistic 22-year old who wanted to save the world and reduce his environmental footprint by growing his own food, building his own shelter, and producing his own fibres for clothes. Magdalene joined him a few years later. To make this homesteading project financially viable, the couple has had to experiment with different revenue streams, including community supported agriculture (CSA) vegetable box programs, hand forged tools, meat animals, dairy cows, and selling fruit and nut trees, as well as plenty of off-farm work as well. After a steep and labour-intensive learning curve, Peter has realized that living off the land can be very expensive, that it can be difficult to earn an income from agricultural products — especially if your land isn't situated in an area with a market for your product nearby, and that living off the land requires a lot of infrastructure & maintenance — all of which costs time and money. And they aren't even trying to be off grid. It was refreshing to get such an honest look behind the scenes of what appears to be a utopian lifestyle: living in a hand built timber frame home with a cozy wood stove, and eating fruit and nuts from your own island orchard's trees, and to know there's quite a big financial and physical struggle to make it all happen. To learn more about Peter and Magdalene's Farm & Tree Nursery, you can check out their website and follow them on Facebook: http://treeeaternursery.com/ https://www.facebook.com/treeeaternursery/?ref=br_rs Thanks for watching! Mat & Danielle ------------------------------------------------------------- STAY IN TOUCH! ------------------------------------------------------------- Blog: www.exploringalternatives.ca Facebook: /exploringalternativesblog Instagram: @exploringalternatives ------------------------------------------------------------- COMMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------- We want our channel and our comments section to be an inclusive space where everyone feels welcome to watch and to contribute. For this reason, comments that are inappropriate or hateful will be reported and/or deleted. Please discuss and debate with respect, and report inappropriate or hateful comments directly to YouTube. ------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO CREDITS ------------------------------------------------------------- Music & Song Credits: All music in this video was composed, performed, and recorded by Mat of Exploring Alternatives. Editing Credits: Mat and Danielle of Exploring Alternatives Filming Credits: Mat of Exploring Alternatives Photo Credits: Photos of Peter & Magdalene provided by Tree Eater Nursery ------------------------------------------------------------- SPONSORS ------------------------------------------------------------- We occasionally include paid sponsor messages/integrations in our videos to help fund the channel. We do our best to work with companies and organizations that offer products or services that are in line with our values, and that we think would be interesting and useful to our viewers. We will always disclose if we’re promoting products that were given to us for free, or if we’re including a sponsored message in our video. For business or sponsorship inquiries, please email us at [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------- OUR CAMERA GEAR* ------------------------------------------------------------- Sony a6000 Camera: http://amzn.to/2rTbnis Sony a6300 Camera: http://amzn.to/2rbDF4X Sony 50mm 1.8 Portrait Lens: http://amzn.to/2rjNLok Rode VideoMicro: http://amzn.to/2sgnWoC Zoom H1 Audio Recorder: http://amzn.to/2suSEen Polsen Lavalier Microphone: http://amzn.to/2rbDxma Vanguard ABEO 234 AV Tripod: http://amzn.to/2sv1WGX SanDisk Extreme Pro 64 GB SD Card: http://amzn.to/2slHfxt *Full Disclaimer: the links to these products are Amazon Affiliate links which means we earn a commission if you purchase the product using one of the links in this section. The products don't cost more by using our links, but the commission helps us continue to fund the Exploring Alternatives project. These are all products that we use, and that we have purchased with our own money, with the exception of the Sony portrait lens which was gifted to us by Mat's Dad (Merci Jacques!).