Episode 102: How Do You Keep Homesteading Without Burning Out? Justin and Rebekah Rhodes

Justin Rhodes told us, about ten minutes into this conversation, that after 20 years of homesteading they’re burnt out, then admitted it depends on the day, since every other day they’re selling the farm.
We recorded this one at the Rhodes farm after 6:30 a.m. chores with both of our families, pulling bush beans and hanging a pole bean trellis before breakfast, and then sat down in the barn Justin’s grandpa built without power tools. Justin talks about the ten years he lived with Lyme disease, the 28-day water fast he credits with healing it, and the strange place he landed afterward, 47 years old and not sure who he was without the illness he’d built his life around. Someone once asked Joel Salatin about burnout in that same barn, and his answer wasn’t more sleep or a smaller operation, it was to find a bigger why, which is the thing Justin keeps coming back to.
Rebekah is just as honest that her hardest stretch wasn’t really about the homestead. A remodel ran double on everything, Hurricane Helene hit, and she lost her mom, and last year she gave herself permission to walk away from the tomatoes while they were still ripening on the vine.
We also get into how Justin uses AI to plan amendments for a 20-acre hay field, and why Rebekah is wary of it. Justin explains his four levels of responsibility for kids on a homestead, and why Lily, still wants her dad to tuck her in after years of milking cows beside him, mostly in silence. They talk about why they both tear up when they harvest a bull they moved every day for seven years, and about the question they get asked more than any other, how do you get your spouse on board. Rebekah answers it in two words: you don’t.
You can find Justin and Rebekah under Justin Rhodes on every social platform and at Abundance Plus. If you want to keep talking about this with other families working out their own homesteads, come find us in the free Call To Farms community at calltofarms.com.
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