Bob Wells Nursery

After much research I packed up the Suburban and headed off to Lindale, Texas and Bob Wells Nursery. As a cantankerous, contrarian curmudgeon, anytime I have so many people saying good things about a company I usually go in with lowered expectations. Happily my expectations were far exceeded.

I went in on a Monday in mid-October and had the place basically to myself. I spent almost an hour just walking through and getting a feel for their inventory. The employees were friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful and gave me plenty of space to just wander around like a poor kid in a toy store. I ended up buying a plethora of trees, bushes, and vines. The guys loaded up my trailer, happily gave me my TSP discount (it paid for the next several years of membership with Spirko by the way) and I was on my way.

If you're anywhere nearby go in and talk with the guys there, they'll tell you what will grow and what won't. Amendments you need, and those you can do without.

The Trees Go In

Well, the swales are in so the next step is to get the trees in the ground. I ran up to  B

The Snow Permaculture Farm

"There is no greater act of rebellion than growing a garden." -Unknown-

Hello Hill and Ellis County! Welcome to the Snow  Farm!

I had a small 1/3 acre suburban homestead before moving back to Texas. I found my passion in life is growing tasty, healthy, safe food free of pesticides and petroleum based fertilizers.

I bought this little 11 acre farm because I want my kids to know the joys and hard work that come from living on a farm. I want as much money as possible to stay in the local area with locally owned small businesses.

I know you're busy, but still want to give your family the best food you can. As we ramp up production here my hope is to find 5-10 families over the next 3-5 years that we can serve.

There's still a lot of work to do, but my goal is to help you feed your family the best food possible.

Whole chickens will be available in spring of 2016.

Heritage breed turkey orders for Thanksgiving 2016 will be taken in spring 2016.

Free range chicken and duck eggs will be available in the summer of 2016. 

Right now there are 36 trees in the ground that will start producing an excess in 2016. The grapes and blackberries we planted should be coming on-line by then as well.

The two Belted Galloway heifers will be producing there first grass fed beef in 2017. As the herd grows so will our offerings of paddock shifted, grass fed beef.

There are so many other things that we hope to do, and I'm sure as the farm matures we'll find products that we've never dreamt of. Honey, fruit trees for sale, garden starts, lavender, hogs, and rabbits are on our radar right now, but who knows what the future holds.

As the site grows I'll be posting recipes involving the food we grow. My thoughts on gardening, and as much as I can what I've learned from all the mistakes I've made with my prior gardening attempts.

I can't wait to meet you, answer your food and gardening questions, and share our humble homestead's progress with you.

Your friend,

Russ Snow

Bob Wells Nursery

After much research I packed up the Suburban and headed off to Lindale, Texas and Bob Wells Nursery. As a cantankerous, contrarian curmudgeon, anytime I have so many people saying good things about a company I usually go in with lowered expectations. Happily my expectations were far exceeded.

I went in on a Monday in mid-October and had the place basically to myself. I spent almost an hour just walking through and getting a feel for their inventory. The employees were friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful and gave me plenty of space to just wander around like a poor kid in a toy store. I ended up buying a plethora of trees, bushes, and vines. The guys loaded up my trailer, happily gave me my TSP discount (it paid for the next several years of membership with Spirko by the way) and I was on my way.

If you're anywhere nearby go in and talk with the guys there, they'll tell you what will grow and what won't. Amendments you need, and those you can do without.

Swales - Just a Ditch on Contour

For those of you who've owned a house already, you understand the time/money pit they can be. Setting up a homestead adds another level to that, in addition to the electric bill etc, you have the additional costs of trees, bushes, animals, feeding troughs, feed, tools et cetra.

Some of these are simply sunk costs, like renting the excavator to dig the swales, while others like the fruit trees themselves will give me at least 100% ROI per year for 10 years (if I can keep them alive, 50/50 that.) I get that ROI number based on assuming $25 paid for tree, and getting at least 25 pounds of fruit valued at $1 per pound for at least 10 years of the trees life.

The first big project that I had to get out of the way was getting the swales dug in. I dug in three, the first one ended up being in really poor soil. The next two swales were in beautiful black clay/loam and that's where I ended up planting a majority of my trees/bushes/vines. In the row that was poor soil, I only planted three trees, two Advacados and a plum. We'll see how they do.

Bob Wells Nursery

After much research I packed up the Suburban and headed off to Lindale, Texas and Bob Wells Nursery. As a cantankerous, contrarian curmudgeon, anytime I have so many people saying good things about a company I usually go in with lowered expectations. Happily my expectations were far exceeded.

I went in on a Monday in mid-October and had the place basically to myself. I spent almost an hour just walking through and getting a feel for their inventory. The employees were friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful and gave me plenty of space to just wander around like a poor kid in a toy store. I ended up buying a plethora of trees, bushes, and vines. The guys loaded up my trailer, happily gave me my TSP discount (it paid for the next several years of membership with Spirko by the way) and I was on my way.

If you're anywhere nearby go in and talk with the guys there, they'll tell you what will grow and what won't. Amendments you need, and those you can do without.

The VA as model for Nationalized Single Payer System

While I was in Ground Radar tech school in Mississippi, I had A LOT of time on my hands, so I turned to Facebook to reconnect with some friends from high school. One of the topics turned to the ACA, and how the VA was THE model to emulate. This was early 2014, February or March, and the suggestion came from one of the smartest women I've ever met. Which is what disturbed me most.

Now she's a great person and I'd describer her as a libertarian leaning Democrat. College educated, well read, independent in her thinking, and completely ignorant of the realities present in the VA. I'd seen some shenanigans in my time with Uncle Sugar as a Rater for the VA, but even I had no idea how bad it really was at the time with the scheduling fraud that was rampant around the country. In hindsight I truly wonder how close the counrty was at the passing of the ACA to having a national single payer instead. Had the ruling party simply have trotted out what most people thought was fantastic care at the VA as how it would be, I wonder if they could have passed it...

Hopefully more and more people are waking up to the reality that an incentive based model is always going to offer better care than a non-profit. That's Profit, for those who don't like dirty words or Charity for the religious amongst us who worry about how they treat their fellow man more than how many cars they can fit in their garages.... All men are created equal, but all men are not the same. Some win in the lottery that is life, genetically, financially, or simply in where they're born. To punish any for this in my mind is no different than discriminating against someone for being born a certain color, handicapped, or gay. To take from them as punishment for success no different than holding another down to prevent them from their Pursuit of life, Liberty and Happieness.

It's going to be interesting moving forward to see how the big problems facing our nation play out. As Winston Churchill reportedly said, "Americans will always do the right thing when they've exhausted all other options."

The Journey to a Homestead

In the fall of my last year coaching women's basketball (2008) I took a step back and began to take inventory of my life. I had a dozen nice suits, a Honda Del Sol, and a sweet Jeep Rubicon (that I owed roughly $15,000 on) and no real assets to speak of other than a few thousand dollars in my retirement account. All told I was right at $60,000 in debt.

I'd been exsposed to enough successful people by this time that I knew I had to make a change in my life, but I had no idea how or where to start, so I do what I always do when I have a question, I turned to Google and begun to research how to get out of debt. I found Dave Ramsey's plan which can be boiled down to this:

1. Pay cash, if you can't pay cash you can't afford it, whatever it may be.

2. If you have a bank loan on the car sell it and drive a beater. (I stupidly fought this for a year.)

3. Attack the smallest debt with all your money, and progressively, ruthlessly, and unwaveringly start paying off from one to the next.

4. Get a second job and be even more heartless in killing the cancer that is debt. I was already a drilling guardsman, so I had another avenue, GI Bill cashola.

5. Get a savings fund of $1000

6. 6 months expenses

7. Start putting away 15% of your monthly income, and then pay off your house as fast as you can.

It really is that simple. It's a matter of how much do you want to be free?

I was a motivated young man. I had a plan, and I worked that plan. I decided that I was going to give being an assistant one more year, and if I didn't get a head coaching job it was time for me to find a job with real earning potential. Knowing what young coaches are supposed to look like I got up at 5:00 three times a week and lifted my guts out. I messed up a ton, ate out too much, cared about not wearing the same shirt twice in a month at work, but I was still searching.

My mom had always kept a garden when I was growing up, I knew how much better I could eat if I was raising it myself, but I didn't have the skills. In the Spring of 2009 in the midst of my search for gardening knowledge I found Jack Spirko and The Survival Podcast. He was Dave Ramsey with a country twang, a healthy bit of profanity that I could appreciate, and a man working a plan. I was hooked. For what it's worth and for the faint of heart, he's not leaving in a bunker (nor his mother's basement) wearing a tin foil cap, he's good ol' boy who was in the rat race, and decided he was going to get out.