Did you go to the one in Tennessee?
They have me teaching homesteading classes at Quailcon this year. It officially became a Quailcon and Homesteading conference.
Recently, most of my American customers at my farm are big into homesteading. It's becoming like a new craze for many white people. I've just done it because it's what I've been interested in my whole life, long before I ever knew it had a name. The stuff some of the people have read or seen videos of and believe is nuts. Some "experts" consider themselves experts after watching one video or reading one article.
Keith
Yes it was the one in TN at Roy's. My wife face painted for the 2nd year there and was booked again for next year. It's always a good time with great people,. The kids are always thoughtful and well spoken and parents are friendly and polite. A totally different crowd than most festivals made up of the general population. It's a working vacation she loves it as do I it's the best festival of the year as far as enjoyment. She paints for 5 hrs a day at a slightly reduction of her hourly rate and paints as many kidos as she can each day tell 2 then we enjoy the festival the rest of the day. Normal the first evening maybe 3 to 4 hrs then out for a snack or dinner and to out lodging.
We miss a lot of the good speakers when painting but still catch up with them around the event sometimes.
Saw some fence I may get, easy and fast to put in plastic t and h post for high tinsel look fast and easy to put in and no need to buy insulators. Guy estimated $1.70 a foot for 7 strained would be my cost. Thinking about adding a jersey or Guernsey milk cow but the mini jerseys may be better with less milk and smaller and easier to handle but the cost is very high. Wife and I enjoyed another talk from Joel Salatin. And to your point of everyone wanting to be homesteaders his latest book is Homestead tsunami. It was growing but really took off during COVID and yes there are a bunch of experts out there but my wife and I have been interested for decades and know the true experts in the movements. It's your typical event with a bunch of vendors selling their homestead invention related products. Several well-known individuals getting talks in multiple tents throughout the day and then in the evening pretty good music festival with several different groups or bands in the evening. Roy has a school house, event center, and nice place for the outside event. He is a song a writer with a lot of musical talent himself and a lot of connections in the industry his concert hall event center is nice and the schoolhouse he built primarily for his daughter Indiana who has downs and homeschools her and other kids there. They have a fences area with rolls of the bottom less troth for each kid to plant for their gardens area, animal barn, milking pallor, root cellar that looks like a hobbit hole house, building built for a corn pit for kids to play in.
It's a great place full of food folks well put together. Plenty of clean porta Jon's hand wash stations, food trucks you name it .
Featherman, has their prototype copy of aluma coop there and they will be $1,500 less. They move as easy and bolt together instead of being welded but that's better for shipping. I don't think it's as well made as aluma coup and doesn't come with feeders and waterers those are add on options that reduce the savings when added in. Yet it's nice to see competition hopefully that brings down the price point. I think aluma coops are better made but won't pay that price. I may buy the feather man due to price. My meat bird pens are heavy and hard for my wife to move and it's worth the money to save here from pulling her back again.
If you get a chance I would say go to the one in TN. Advanced admissions are about 50% off. Ours is free since they hire us to come.