COVID Remedies & Online Censorship

Hey Pioneers. Welcome to episode number 333. On today's episode, we are going to be talking about a couple of things. First up is censorship and what happened to me twice now on Instagram, which will make sense and relate to sharing our experience and coming down with COVID and why I want to be talking about both of these things together in one episode. If you are on my email list or you got my weekly newsletter, then you probably read about this when it happened. In January, I posted a post in the feed on Instagram that I have posted every year for approximately the past three years since I wrote the article. And that is how much to plant per person if you are wanting to grow a year's worth of food.

As I said, this is content that it's timely, it's something that we're all garden planting in January. And for those who want to know how much to plant for a year's worth of food, it is an excellent resource. I have the article that has a bunch of information on it. And then you can also download free charts that are from my book, The Family Garden Plan. One is a worksheet. It walks you through how to know how much for your family because based upon your family and what you eat, the amounts are going to be different even if it's the same food. It might be green beans and we're a family of four. That's my family. You may be a family of four and wanting to grow green beans, but based upon how often you actually eat green beans, the amount of green beans that will feed your family for a year versus what will feed my family for a year are different. And when we're doing our calculations, it should be tailored exactly to our family and their needs.

So there's a worksheet that you get for free. It's in the Family Garden Plan, but I also give it away for free on my site. And then once you determine what that is, then I have a chart that you take that information, go and plug it into the chart and it tells you exactly for your family how many of each of the plants, both fruits and vegetables, you need to plant in order to have a year's worth of food of that specific item. As I shared, it's something I have shared on social media, Facebook and Instagram, for a number of years now. Well, in this particular sharing of it, I wrote about my dad and how he grew up during the Great Depression. If they hadn't have grown their own food and put it up, they would have went hungry because they didn't have the money or the funds to purchase outside food. But they never did go hungry because they knew how to grow and preserve their own food and put up food storage.

That is all that I wrote. Nothing in there about hoarding or, I don't know, whatever trigger words Instagram has, which is owned by Facebook and it's all owned by Meta I believe is what they're calling themselves now. Anyways, I have heard of people who have been censored or post removed or blocked. Honestly I thought, well, that was the post that they probably blocked you from. But if you look at what they were sharing in the past, that wasn't the reason. It was just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Honestly, that's what I thought.

Now, right or wrong, that is what I thought and a lot of people that I have of acquaintances over the years of having been a blogger and having a website for over a decade, those are kind of people that I've come in contact with. And so I've seen some of their stories and I thought, yeah, but I've seen a lot of what you posted. It wasn't just this one post. Okay. I have tried very hard. You'll notice probably on this podcast. If you watch any of my YouTube videos, if you follow me on social media, etc, I try really hard to not go down any political route. Now, not that I am trying to hide anything, but I have found that I have friends, I have family, all of the things that all have different political views.

But we all want to provide the very best for our families and are using the means of modern home setting in order to do that. And so I don't really post anything on the political stuff unless that's like a direct ruling or a direct law or direct something like that that would have a direct effect on being able to homestead. Now, that's different drawing awareness to those type of things. But overall, political stuff, you just don't find it. It's just not something that I'm posting about or sharing about. So I share that because I've been very careful to also not post things about COVID specifically on my page because I know that that is a trigger for the algorithms.

But never in my life would I have thought that growing a year's worth of food for you and your family from your garden would be something that the algorithm or the tech that they would have set up and that they would completely remove, and that is a form of censorship. Right or wrong, that is what it is. What happened is normally at the time of this recording with the size of the people, amount of people that I have following me on Instagram, a typical post in the feed that is not a video that is just pictures will get on the low end 8,000 views. So that's on the low end within 24 hours of posting.

This post had been up for 24 hours and it had one comment on it and it had showed in the insights, so the analytics that you have access to if you have a creator account, business account, it showed that only 58, yes, 58 people of over 50, at that time, it was 56,000 people follow my Instagram account. Only 58 people had seen it. And I'm like, is this just where the insights aren't showing correctly? Because this is weird. I've never had this low ever before. Something is up. And this is normally a very popular post. So I shared the post to my stories, this is 24 hours later, and I said, "Hey, did you see this? Something feels kind weird, like it's not being shown. But I don't know if there's a glitch in the analytics, let me know if you saw this post or not in my feed." And I shared that to my stories.

Within 10 minutes of me sharing that in the story, I was getting massive amount of comments under the post like, "Hey, I didn't see this. I'm so glad that you shared this in your stories because this is info that I really need to have, like super excited." Like didn't see it before, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Comment, comment, comment, comment, comment. Then within 30 minutes, all of a sudden I go back into my account in order to respond to the comments and questions that people had been leaving under this post, it's completely gone. Just completely deleted. I can't access it following from messages where people had messaged from the post because I can hit that and it'll take me directly to it. It's not showing up under my feed and they deleted the story.

So not only did they delete the post and not show it in the first place. And then when people started to engage with it, they completely deleted it. And they deleted my stories as well. I mean, completely gone, no record. It's not just shadow band, not showing it to people, they completely removed it. That's not a glitch, not a glitch. I was just floored. I'm like, there's nothing in this that has anything to do with any of the normal topics that you would expect. Like if I had posted COVID or something like that that this should be removed from. I was literally, my jaw dropped open. I was stunned. What in the world? So I shared about that because I'm like, "Honestly, I sadly have seen some of these things happen to other people and thought it's not going to happen to me." I think that's probably a pretty normal thing a lot of us think, but it did. It happened to me.

So I posted again and I reused my wording because I really wanted to test it. So I posted the post again, did different wording, didn't mention anything about going hungry or the Great Depression or any of those words that I had used in the previous post, even though there's nothing wrong with any of those words, made sure I was really careful in my wording. That post was one of my most viewed posts ever and was posted 24 hours apart. Going to the same link on my website, all the same things, same photos, just slightly different wording. So there is something, I don't know if it's just the way they have their algorithm and it's a tech, if it's a real person, a combination, I don't know, but there are certain words that are being used and gardening for goodness sakes should not be one of them. They are removing information.

I was surprised, I'm no longer surprised. And then four days later, I did a post on growing your own herbs, herbal medicine. Again, nothing about virus, COVID, pandemic, like none of those things, nothing. Exact same scenario. Only showed it to like 48 people. And then when people did try to comment underneath, post got removed. It hasn't happened since then, but it did happen twice, two different subjects. One was herbal medicine and the other was on growing a year's worth of food in your own vegetable garden in your backyard. How much should you plant per person?

Why do I share that with you? One, because I think it's very important as homesteaders if you're listening to this, you have some bent of self sufficiency in mind and it is happening and it's happening to accounts that have nothing to do with posting taboo or misinformation, regardless if the accounts that are being accused of that are doing that or not. I have not with my account. I have "played by their rules". I know now that if there are certain people and information that I have relied on social media to follow them or to find information, et cetera, on that, that I need to make sure that I have hard copy books or I have my own material that I have downloaded, printed out, that I have went through courses, amassed the knowledge for myself by going through said courses, and that I am not relying on any form of social media to get my info.

Now, am I still using those forms of social media? Yes, I am still using them because I am still able to post some things. I have relationships with many of you who follow me there. I'm able to communicate with you. Same thing with YouTube. Like are these all social media things owned by big companies who, I don't know, don't necessarily have the public's interest at heart or maybe they think they do. But removing these types of things, clearly in my mind if you're removing a gardening post, I don't really think that you have the public's best interest at heart. And that makes me mad because I feel like I, obviously am an adult. I'm assuming you are too. If you are a kid listening to this podcast, dude, high five, but I'm an adult.

I have enough common sense, hallelujah, that I can listen to information and I can make my own judgment call on what I think is right and correct. I do my own research and I am smart enough, And so are you, to do our own research and be able to discern from research and looking at studies what that actually means. We do not need... Sorry, I'm just going to go on a soapbox. We do not need somebody to censor information for us. We are much more intelligent than they want to give us credit for. And so, I am bothered by the fact that my content is being censored and it's literally on how to grow your own food, gardening content. And then it was a herb, like the five best herbs to get started with growing in a backyard garden setting that had nothing to do with any of the trigger words or talking about any of that.

Now, that being said, I know many of you since then went and downloaded those charts, have got the book and are on my email newsletter list because I actually own my email newsletter list. That's something that I own, I can have backup copies of and I can communicate with you even if they try to take things off of airwaves and social media, et cetera. Speaking of podcast, then about two weeks after that happened, maybe even a week, our family came down with COVID. We just were recovering, which is why there was not a podcast episode last week. I actually just did not fill up. I didn't have one that had been prerecorded and I just was not up to getting an episode out and up.

However, we are on the ment. And so I'm going to share some of that because I know people are very, very curious. People asked about our treatment plan and I want to get to that, and it does tie into my story of the censorship and making sure that you have access to information or acquiring this. And I am not like a doomsday person, I don't want to say like while you still can, but just being prudent, being prudent. This is another... You guys are like, wow, let me know how you really feel. This is a conversation that we just had if you are a Pioneering Today Academy Member, and we had one of our live chats. We have a couple a month. Yesterday we had one of our live chats and this was one of the topics that we got going on. And that is the sad inability, because somebody asked me, they said, "Can we ask you if you're vaccinated or not?" And I'm like, "How sad is it that we live in a society right now where we are worried about asking somebody a question like that?"

Now, one, is it my private health information? Yeah, it is. But we are so divided as a society right now that we've lost the ability to be able to have conversations around topics where we may disagree. We should be able to talk about things that we have differing views on and not get angry and not even try to change the other person's mind just to be able to discuss it, and then still walk away and we can still be friends and we can still have our differing points of view. I think it is so sad that we live in a time where we have media and companies and people who if you don't think exactly like them, then they want to remove that completely from the picture. I don't want to live in a society like that. I don't want to live in a place where we can't have differing of opinions and still be adult enough and humane enough and kind enough to be able to have conversations that we do disagree with one another on and still be friends.

It is completely possible. I have family members, I have close friends, et cetera, and we have different views when it comes to vaccination status. And guess what? They're still my family and some of them are still my best friends. That is the way it should be. This division is ridiculous. That being said, because some of you are going to hear what I have to say and it's going to be the opposite for you, but regardless, we should be able to talk about this and that is what I want to create a community of.

So, we came down with COVID. We are not vaccinated. We chose for our family that that was not the best decision based upon prior existing conditions and just other things. I feel like I probably shouldn't even have to explain that, but I'm going to. I'm going to preface it with that. We know that there were people who are vaccinated that still got COVID and we were exposed to them and that is how we got it. We can actually trace that back and we know that.

However, that doesn't mean that they were wrong because they got vaccinated and still got COVID and transferred it to us. It doesn't mean we're right, or vice versa. It's just simply facts. It's just data. Regardless, we still got COVID and so did they. We actually didn't know if we had COVID. We suspected because we knew that the family member that came down with it first had been exposed to people who did test positive for COVID and had been sick, that there had been a transposition. I'm making up words. There had been a period where that had transferred over is what I was trying to say, a timeline.

Came down with it first was fever, chills, and body aches, just like you would experience with flus that we've had in the past. Two days later, I came down with it. One day later, one of my children came down with it. Four people in our household, and there was no... I didn't quarantine in my own home. Like wash your hands, kind of common sense when anybody's sick. We do that anyways. Practice good hygiene. But I still was providing meals. We were still cooking. We live in a family. We're taking care of one another. It is what it is. The other fourth person in our family never did get it, ever, and they were fully exposed all the time. Just data. Again, just data.

For me, it started with a really, really bad headache. In fact, I thought... I don't get migraines very often. I've had a migraine probably three times in my life. Usually I can track it and it has to do with hormones. But I thought maybe I'm coming down with a migraine because it was that level of a headache where I actually was so nauseous and my head hurt so bad. I could wouldn't walk. I walked into the kitchen for my recliner, which is literally like maybe three feet. Actually had to sit down on the floor. Couldn't stand up. And I'm like, I think I'm going to throw up, and it was just from the pain in my head. Was able to go to sleep, go to bed, and I took a nap for two and a half hours. When I woke up, I still had a headache, was nowhere near as bad.

Now, at that point I didn't have a fever yet. I didn't have chills and I thought, did I just, because that's kind of been what... The few times I have had a migraine, that's been exactly what has happened. It's hurt really bad. If I can just go where it's dark and go to sleep and sleep for about two hours, I'll wake up. The worst part will be over. The light sensitivity will be gone, the nauseous will be gone, and then I'm just kind of weak for a day. And then I'm good to go. So I thought maybe I'm just getting a migraine. Maybe that's what happened.

Well, it took about three hours later and then the fever hit in and the chills. That was my symptoms for the first 24 hours. The second day, I had on and off mild fever. I didn't even take my temperature. Thought later, I'm like, "Oh, I could have checked our temperature." But it was just kind of on and off. Really tired, no more headache, hallelujah. Just a little bit achy but not really, really bad body aches. A lot of people have told me like worse body aches ever. We didn't experience that. And then by day three, actually some mild... That was when I felt like I had more cold symptoms, as in, was coughing, not really congestion but more just like a coughing spasm, but not trouble breathing.

And then after that, have just been tired like when you have had a cold. Have just been tired and a very dry cough. Not a sore throat but a very, very dry throat. Like no matter how much water I drink or teas, especially using things like marshmallow, which are very... Marshmallow is great because especially for a dry sore throat or dry cough. If you've ever have a marshmallow flower and you open it up, it's kind of like aloe vera inside, and then you use a marshmallow root or at least that's what I have, but it has the same effect. It's very emulsifying. And so it's great to use in those instances. So even with that and drinking that, still just felt like I could never get enough water, which is interesting.

Now, right now at the time of this recording, it's been two weeks after the fact. Just the past couple of days, I actually have felt normal as far as ability to concentrate. I found that very interesting. I've heard other people talk about it and both two family members of the three of us that had it have experienced that same thing. This is the only way I know how to describe it. So gentlemen if you're listening or you're a lady and you've not been pregnant, bear with me, it's like having pregnancy brain, almost when you're pregnant and you're just super, super tired. And pregnancy brain is a real thing. It's like you just lose your train of thought and you have a hard time focusing at times.

That's only way I really know how to liken it is to how I felt, like I would sit down and physically I was okay. Like I was getting in like 14,000 steps, was walking three, four miles a day still. Not pushing myself, like not running, just walking, which is pretty normal for me. I just went back to my normal activity load but haven't been doing any weight lifting. I still haven't tried to do any weight lifting or any heavy workouts yet, but just movement, and that was all fine. And if I start to feel tired, there was a couple days like I'd start to go for a walk and I'd get like a mile in and I'm like, "No, I'm kind of feeling tired," and I just turn around and walk home. Not a big deal.

But the mental fatigue, that's the only way I know how to say it, was a very, very real thing. Had a hard time focusing mentally on anything that wasn't just like doing a laundry's fine. But I actually have a book project. I have some big projects that I'm working on and I would sit down and I just could not get my brain to focus and actually produce the work. That, hallelujah, has started to abate.

Why do I share all of that with you? Because I think, one, it's just important to hear different people's experiences, but I also had people that wanted to know, well, how did you treat and what was your protocol? So sharing this is one of the things that if any of you... I'm sure you've seen in the news. I don't know how any of us have missed it if you're on any type of social media. Not even that, I think with the regular news although I don't watch much of the regular news to be honest. Joe Rogan is a podcaster, very large podcaster. He has done some episodes with some different doctors and stuff on COVID and different things to do with COVID. There's this huge thing where there's this push to cancel him. You've got different people who are accusing him of doing misinformation on his podcast and it's just this whole big thing.

I've actually listened to the podcast. I found it very interesting. I think it's always important to listen and look at all of the information and then make a decision. I listened to it. I found it very interesting. I'm wondering if the people who are up in arms have actually listened to the episode. Anyways, I'm not making this an episode about that episode. But the reason I'm saying that is because I'm able to share inside my membership, the Pioneering Today Academy, courses kind of behind closed doors, so to speak. There, I can really speak freely and share a lot of the things where unfortunately we're in a society today where we're not really able to do that.

And so I am going to share some of the stuff with you because I think it's important, but I can't go as in depth and as in detail as I do inside of my courses in the membership and inside our Practical Home Herbalism course for cold and flu, I actually have a COVID protocol, which is the protocol that we did follow. We already had on hand. I'm going to share some of that with you. And if you're in Pioneering Today Academy Member, then you have access to that as well, although that is a course that I do sell independently and it's just one of the things that we go over in that. But that is why sadly I think a lot of information, that's going to be the route that we have to go.

I don't know if I should say sadly, but I know a lot of other content creators, I don't know, that seems like a weird word to use phrase, but it is what it is, are having to go that route. They're having to pick different avenues in order to actually share things. I hope that we see a swing back the other way, but I'm going to share some of the protocol that we did and all scientifically based. There's a lot of things these days that say look at science and these are studies. When I chose the protocol that we were doing, that there were studies on it and on the methods that we were using that have been around for a very long time. Now, COVID has not been around for a very long time, but we've had SARS viruses, we've had different viruses.

And so looking at actual herbs and different protocols that have scientific backed studies. Also long history and periods of use before using them. That's very important to me, that's how I practice. I'm not a certified herbalist, by the way, or a medical professional in any way, shape or form, but that is how I do my research before I use things for my family. I research it super, super heavy, and there's a lot of different mechanisms that I need to look at before it's something that I use for myself and my family and before I would share it with any of you.

That being said, the first protocol that we did is having specific antiviral herbs on hand and understanding the dosing. So with a lot of your antiviral herbs that actually have scientific data that they have antiviral properties against influenza, against SARS, against specific viruses is where I'm going with this, they need to be taken at the first sign of you coming down with something before the virus actually fully enters into the cells and begins replicating.

A lot of the herbs and some of the natural remedies, if they're not taken soon enough and at high enough doses, this is something I see repetitively with people who are just getting into using herbs and think that they don't work or don't see a lot of benefit or have used them and don't think that they really work is they're not taking them at the right timing, specifically when we're talking about viruses, cold and flus, and they're not taking high enough doses often enough. They want to treat it like modern medicine where you would take one pill every six hours or every 12 hours or whatever it would be. That's not the way that herbs work.

So, as soon as anybody started to come down with symptoms, and I mean just like thought that they were starting to come down with symptoms, we started the antiviral protocol. Now, we already follow a protocol of making sure... We live far enough north that almost everybody north of a certain hemisphere line does not get enough vitamin D naturally. So we already supplement with vitamin D to make sure our vitamin D levels are up; and good nutrition, good health, et cetera. So that is like number one thing. I feel like it should go without saying, but I said it. So we already were doing that.

And then we were following specific antivirals, and there's a lot of them. So within your antivirals, there's antivirals, there's also immune boosting and some of them go together or support other parts of the body that are affected usually with the virus, especially if it was a suspected SARS virus or COVID-19 virus, but they're synergist herbs. So when you have a formula of them together, they work better than if you're taking them independently. And then there's some herbs that actually shouldn't be taken by themselves, they should only be taken with other herbs. Also mushrooms, there's a lot of mushrooms that have a lot of great data that are really good at not only helping support the body, so like adaptogen type ones are helping the body adapt to stress because when you are that sick, there's definitely a stress level, but also have antiviral properties to them. So a combination of those that we did.

Some of the big ones I would say to look at, and this is where if you are a member of the academy or you own my Practical Home Herbalism for cold and flu course, there's a whole lesson in there. But I will tell you this within this episode is look up information by herbalist Stephen Buhner I believe is how you pronounce his last name. Now, we'll have in the show notes the blog post that accompanies this episode, which will be at melissaknorris.com/333. This is episode 333. So just the number 333. Melissaknorris.com/333. We'll have links to these, but specifically the book Herbal Antivirals by Stephen Buhner or Buhner, it's B-U-H-N-E-R, is a great place to start. And then he has a report that he has done on SARS and COVID. I will link to that. I don't know if it's... I'm hoping at the time that this goes live, that it is still up.

That is one of the things I told everybody when we release the lesson inside is to go and download this because I don't know how long it will stay up. That's one of the dangers. But download it and then you'll have the information. And so he goes into depth. And so you can access that and go through it. I took the highlights for members and went over that as well as everywhere that I was able to purchase and order the different formulas because it can even that. With the censorship and just all the stuff, it can be even really hard to find places because certain words are now excluded from search engines or they don't want to show results, etc. It can be even hard to find some of the formulations and the herbs.

But we had specific tinctures that were formulations that we were taking along with elderberry syrup, much more frequently. So every hour, about waking hour, we were taking elderberry syrup along with these other herbs that we were using in the antiviral formulations. And then lots of bone broth. Thankfully I had started making bone broth a couple of days before we got sick. So I had two batches of bone broth on hand. No appetite, by the way. I think we went almost like two or three days with like barely eating anything, just was not hungry. But would sip on a lot of bone broth, which was really great. I almost felt like I craved it. I just wanted to sip on some hot bone broth. That was another thing that we implemented along with water.

And then had a nebulizer on hand and specific essential oils, L-glutathione, which is all protocol that you can find in that report if it's still up that we will link to on Stephen Buhner and some different things that we did for breathing treatments with the nebulizer. This is one of the things that did we have lesser symptoms based upon talking to people who live in our area who came down with illnesses very close to the same time as us? So assuming, based upon different test results, that we had the same thing, they had certain symptoms that were much more severe than ours, but they didn't have the herbal protocol.

But again, that's not like a true clinical study obviously because really the only way to do that was you can't replicate us coming down with the same virus and treating once with all of the protocol and then going through it again without any of the protocol. I mean, that would be a true side by side study to know did it make a difference or not. You can't do that because that's not the way the body works. So I can't say that because we used this protocol, that it lessen severity of symptoms, not in a clinical sense. I firmly believe that it did. I have to say that with the cough spasming that we experienced, that the nebulizer treatment, that felt like it really, really helped, especially with that dry cough spasming.

And so I was very, very grateful that we had those items on hand and all of the things that we put in there. Of course, I feel like this goes without saying, but you have to do your own research. I would point you in the direction that we went to and that we used for exact step by step and that type of stuff where I go more into detail. If you're a member of the academy, we will be opening again for new members in March. So that's coming up soon. Or if you own my herbal course, there's a newer lesson in there. I released it I think it was the end of December where I wanted to make sure that we had all of those items on hand and to share that info so other people could get prepared and know what to have on hand and what to do because you know this to be true.

If you wait until you're actually sick and you don't have the stuff on hand, you're not going to be able to go out and get it, and you're going to be too... The first day we were so sick, like it was all I could do to just... I already had outlined and printed out this is the stuff and this is the amounts and the times that we're going to take this. I already knew if it was items that had any contraindications for our specific family or not, so who could take what based upon health conditions, safety, duration, dosing. All of that I had already done and that's inside the herbal course. I know I keep saying that, but that's my main focus and that work's already been done.

But if that work had not been done and then we came down with it and I was trying to figure all of that out while being sick, it just wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't even been able to get some of the supplies that quickly, which you know I have the episode, we'll link to that in the show notes and the blog post, where I go over like what if you couldn't get your medicine. We're already taking steps this year to make sure that we are growing more of our own medicine, or at least as many of the plants as we'll grow in our climate as possible just so that we are prepared for whenever we may need it.

I share that with you just because that's kind of what's been going on in our world, what I've been seeing. A lot of you were curious, because I had mentioned a couple of places like in some Instagram stories and some comments and stuff that we did have COVID. And so a lot of you were actually asking what it was like, what happened, how our experience was with it and what we were doing treatment wise. And so I just kind of wanted to spell it all out for you and let you know what I was witnessing as a share of information and really what I was seeing happen within that landscape of what was being polled or not polled or what can we freely share without some type of repercussion and what that looks like and what our options are.

Speaking of options, today's episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. In a time where we can't always get to the store or there have been some supply issues and who knows what the future landscape will look like, I have been doing more and more of our shopping from places other than the regular grocery store. ButcherBox is a phenomenal option. I've been very impressed with the shipping, the quality and that it still stays frozen even though we live way out in the boonies. And they've got great options. Right now, they have a ground beef for life.

Listen to this, you guys. It's 100% grass-fed ground beef, two pounds in every box for the lifetime of your membership. So it's free ground beef in every box, 100% grass-fed. Grass-fed beef is really important to me and my family because of the omega-3s that are produced, which are very different than omega-6. Omega-6 is what you're going to find in your typical grain-fed beef. And so grass-fed beef is really important to us so that we're having the omega-3s. Too much omega-6 is not great for your health. Omega-6 oils, especially if you get too much of them in ratio, can trigger inflammation. Omega-3s are really great and are found in grass-fed beef, if it's grass-fed. Go to butcherbox.com/pioneeringtoday, that's butcherbox.com/pioneeringtoday, to get two pounds of 100% grass-fed ground beef in every box for the lifetime of your membership. So that is ground beef for life.

I have to say, I've had their ground beef. It's very good. It is lean, great color, great flavor. I did a side by side and used their ground beef and didn't tell my kids and they didn't notice any difference between the ButcherBox grass-fed ground beef and our home raised ground beef. Now, I as the cook did notice that it was not quite as bright red. I mean, it was still beautiful coloring, but it wasn't quite as bright red as our grass-fed beef. It was a little bit leaner. Ours is pretty lean, but theirs was a little bit leaner than ours, but it still was really good flavor, very happy with the quality, et cetera. But in a true side by side, that was the differences I noticed as far as visual cooking and then flavor and taste.

But ground beef is one of our most used because I can turn it into so many different things when it comes to cooking. So, go ahead and take advantage of that, butcherbox.com/pioneeringtoday. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I don't have... Well, I kind of have a specific verse in mind, but it's one I actually have been, I just keep coming back to. I didn't share any of the things. Sometimes it's very interesting when you receive feedback from people because we have a lot of people listen to the Pioneering Today podcast and I am extremely grateful for all of you who listen and who share the episodes and the podcast with other people and their website and all of those things. And then when you share your feedback with me, I really am grateful for that.

But every now and then you'll get a comment and not often, but every now and then I'll get a comment or feedback about fear mongering. Because you talk about being prepared, one, I don't think that that is fear mongering. That's just simply been the way I was raised and we have always lived. Now, maybe it's because I was raised by my dad, was a small child during the Great Depression, but he went through a time period where if you weren't prepared, he would've went hungry. That shapes a person. And so I probably closer to that than most in my generations because my dad is 20 years older than my mom. And so most of the people that I grew up with or who are my age, their dad wasn't the age of my dad. So I almost was like being raised by a prior generation.

And so I have just always lived my life from that lens that was passed down from him. So I don't look at being prepared as fear mongering. I look at it as like peace of mind, like I have so much more peace and it has served us so well. And so, I don't do it from a place of anxiety or stress or a place of fear. And so whenever I get those comments, I'm always like, "Hmm, I find it interesting that that's the perspective that you got from the sharing of this information." And in a way, I'm sorry that that's the perspective you got, not because I feel like I shared or did anything wrong, just that I am so sorry that that's the way that you view life and that you view this information because that's not the intent or the reason that I'm sharing it.

But I also believe in wanting to know what's really going on. I don't want it sugar coated or hid from me, I just want to know the truth. That being said, I share all that with you because I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I think that's kind of the point. None of us know. I don't want to live my life in fear or try to escape society as a whole, like go live off grid in a bunker. That's never been my message and that's not my intent. I think that we need community more and more actually, small homestead communities but even the homestead community at large because that is facilitating these smaller homestead communities within our geographical range. Even online communities that we're forming, like if you're a PTA member, we have our amazing community even though we don't all live in proximity to one another.

I feel that talking about this is only going to help that and we need more and more of that. And so I hope that nothing I share creates anxiety or stress. I hope that the future, that we move forward in a way with enough voices rose that we don't have to worry about censorship or any of those things. But I feel like I'm pragmatic enough that that might not be the case. And so in case it's not, I do want to be prepared, which is why I'm sharing all of this with you because having experienced all of that, I am continually looking at are there places that I want to get information from that I don't have a resource on hand? So like is there somebody I felt that they have a book out that I should purchase their book because I might not be able to access the info on their website for whatever reason.

Again, this is not fear like, oh, go purchase every book under the sun. We have to work within a budget and space and all those things. But it is making me look at my resources and being like, "Ooh, am I relaying a little bit too much on digital, and is it even printing things out?" Making sure they're printed out beforehand. For example, like when I did get sick, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go sit at the computer and find a file and print it out. I had it printed out and I had it sitting with our nebulizer and the supplies that we used for the nebulizer all ready to go in one spot. So even things like that, are there things that I just need to have these resources better organized and more at my fingertips and not relying on so much of the digital aspect, I guess, is kind of where I'm going with that.

So anyways, thank you for what ended up being actually a much longer podcast episode than I had intended. We will be back. I've got some great, exciting, different interviews and topics to talk with you guys that I can't wait for upcoming episodes, but wanted to let you know why we missed a week and that we are all fine, and just share what was really going on. And so the verse of the week that I am very long-winded at getting to has been from the book of Esther and the whole story of Esther. If you've not read that, go through and read that story. And it is, for such a time as this.

I feel like an old soul and I'm sure you do too. That's one thing that many of us who are into home setting and this, and Laura Ingalls Wilder was like, I was born a century too late. Like you feel that because you resonate so deeply with growing your own food and sourdough and sewing and livestock and all the things that we kind of modern society associates with older generations, but we were not born too late. We were not born a century too late because God knew exactly what was going to be happening right now. He knows what's happening in the future. We don't. And he put us exactly in the time that we needed to be in, you and I. And so you were born; I was born, you were born for such a time as this. So, I'm going to leave you with that thought my friend. Blessings and Mason jars for now.