A mum swapped city life for a rural farm and now forages food, has homegrown supplies to last six months and sells alpaca poo.
Karee Upendo, 35, and her husband, Avery, 35, decided to move to a homestead when they found themselves working 12-hour days and felt they didn’t have enough time for their kids.
The couple realised they were happiest when on an adventure – on a farming tour or travelling – so decided to look for an "escape" in the woods.
Karee found a six-acre property, and sold their $195k seven-bedroom house in Racine, Wisconsin, US – moving 800 miles to Hampton, Georgia, US.
Now the couple and their children – Alex, 16, Aven, nine, Asher, four, and Solea, nine months – forage Chanterelle mushrooms, beauty berries, and peppers on their land to make meals such as mushroom pizza and dandelion soup.
They grow over 80 different edible wild plants and vegetables and barter with local farmers for their meat – swapping their excess edible wild grown food.
Karee says she is at her “happiest” since leaving their busy lifestyle behind and moving to the farm.
Karee, who owns the homesteading farm with Avery, said: “We’re pretty much self-sustainable.
“We have three to six months of preserves.
“I felt like I was losing my mind before.
“I was never as happy as I am right now.
"If the apocalypse happened, we could sustain ourselves off our land alone.
"We've tapped our own well for water, have solar electricity and have created a permaculture food forest."
The family sell their alpaca poo to gardeners and horticulturist all over the globe to make a living.
Karee said: "Our alpacas bring in a large portion of our income. Their fibre and poop is a gold mind.
"We sell 'magic beans' to gardeners and horticulturist worldwide. We sell s**t for a living."
Karee said her late grandmother, Mae, 69, taught her about foraging from a young age.
After meeting Avery, the pair started raising their family in Racine, Wisconsin, and worked long days – Karee as an educator and her husband as a handyman.
Karee said: “We were working 12 hours day and so tired at the weekends.
“We had everything we say you should want but we were completely unhappy.”
The couple decided to “sell everything” they owned for a slower pace of life on a homestead.
Karee said: “We were always trying to escape life. We wanted to make life the escape.”
They moved onto their new land June 2021 – which had a cabin which needed “a lot of work”.
Karee said: “There was mould throughout.
“We started working on the homestead. We wanted to make the money from the homestead.”
By October 2021 Karee and Avery had built two cabins on their land for guests to stay in – and now run foraging workshops.
The pair also grow vegetables such as peppers and tomatoes - and even harvest the oil from beauty berry leaves to make their own mosquito repellent.
They keep 180,000 bees on a one-acre bee apiary and make their own honey and keep chickens to fertilise the land and provide them with eggs.
Karee said: “Growing up I didn’t see black people represented in the farming industry.
“People say they have never seen a black woman beekeeper or farmer – I get that message most days.”
Karee makes her meals from mostly foraged foods from her land – or local produce – and challenges herself to cook dinner from 50 per cent foraged food on a Sunday.
She said: “Every Sunday we have a forage, catch or harvest challenge for the family, which means 50 per cent of the meal has to be one of those three.
"It’s a food forest.”
She makes mushroom pizza – from homegrown Chanterelles and peppers – and mushroom ravioli.
Karee uses canning to preserve their food – and stocks of three to six months in her pantry.
The family also use wildflowers for herbal medicine – and don’t use any modern medicines apart from cough drops.
Karee said: “We don’t buy medication.
“We eat dandelion soup.”
Karee even uses pine needles and lemons to make an anti-viral for cleaning.
Karee said: “We have an almost no waste farm, old food and scraps get composted for new soil or made into animal feed.
"We repurpose all materials to build our animals enclosures.
We’re living in a utopia.
“It’s a feeling of unity.
“I couldn’t have imagined this life for me and my family in my dreams.”
Karee Upendo, 35, and her husband, Avery, 35, decided to move to a homestead when they found themselves working 12-hour days and felt they didn’t have enough time for their kids.
The couple realised they were happiest when on an adventure – on a farming tour or travelling – so decided to look for an "escape" in the woods.
Karee found a six-acre property, and sold their $195k seven-bedroom house in Racine, Wisconsin, US – moving 800 miles to Hampton, Georgia, US.
Now the couple and their children – Alex, 16, Aven, nine, Asher, four, and Solea, nine months – forage Chanterelle mushrooms, beauty berries, and peppers on their land to make meals such as mushroom pizza and dandelion soup.
They grow over 80 different edible wild plants and vegetables and barter with local farmers for their meat – swapping their excess edible wild grown food.
Karee says she is at her “happiest” since leaving their busy lifestyle behind and moving to the farm.
Karee, who owns the homesteading farm with Avery, said: “We’re pretty much self-sustainable.
“We have three to six months of preserves.
“I felt like I was losing my mind before.
“I was never as happy as I am right now.
"If the apocalypse happened, we could sustain ourselves off our land alone.
"We've tapped our own well for water, have solar electricity and have created a permaculture food forest."
The family sell their alpaca poo to gardeners and horticulturist all over the globe to make a living.
Karee said: "Our alpacas bring in a large portion of our income. Their fibre and poop is a gold mind.
"We sell 'magic beans' to gardeners and horticulturist worldwide. We sell s**t for a living."
Karee said her late grandmother, Mae, 69, taught her about foraging from a young age.
After meeting Avery, the pair started raising their family in Racine, Wisconsin, and worked long days – Karee as an educator and her husband as a handyman.
Karee said: “We were working 12 hours day and so tired at the weekends.
“We had everything we say you should want but we were completely unhappy.”
The couple decided to “sell everything” they owned for a slower pace of life on a homestead.
Karee said: “We were always trying to escape life. We wanted to make life the escape.”
They moved onto their new land June 2021 – which had a cabin which needed “a lot of work”.
Karee said: “There was mould throughout.
“We started working on the homestead. We wanted to make the money from the homestead.”
By October 2021 Karee and Avery had built two cabins on their land for guests to stay in – and now run foraging workshops.
The pair also grow vegetables such as peppers and tomatoes - and even harvest the oil from beauty berry leaves to make their own mosquito repellent.
They keep 180,000 bees on a one-acre bee apiary and make their own honey and keep chickens to fertilise the land and provide them with eggs.
Karee said: “Growing up I didn’t see black people represented in the farming industry.
“People say they have never seen a black woman beekeeper or farmer – I get that message most days.”
Karee makes her meals from mostly foraged foods from her land – or local produce – and challenges herself to cook dinner from 50 per cent foraged food on a Sunday.
She said: “Every Sunday we have a forage, catch or harvest challenge for the family, which means 50 per cent of the meal has to be one of those three.
"It’s a food forest.”
She makes mushroom pizza – from homegrown Chanterelles and peppers – and mushroom ravioli.
Karee uses canning to preserve their food – and stocks of three to six months in her pantry.
The family also use wildflowers for herbal medicine – and don’t use any modern medicines apart from cough drops.
Karee said: “We don’t buy medication.
“We eat dandelion soup.”
Karee even uses pine needles and lemons to make an anti-viral for cleaning.
Karee said: “We have an almost no waste farm, old food and scraps get composted for new soil or made into animal feed.
"We repurpose all materials to build our animals enclosures.
We’re living in a utopia.
“It’s a feeling of unity.
“I couldn’t have imagined this life for me and my family in my dreams.”
Category
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FunTranscript
00:00 For dessert I wanted to do a hive check on my bees so I told my husband let's go outside
00:03 with a little plate and get some fresh honey and comb and bring it in because I had some
00:07 leftover rustic bread that I made into baguettes and I made some really cool desserts.
00:13 You can try a piece of comb.
00:15 You just chew it all the way until it makes a wax in your mouth and you throw it away.
00:19 And bite it and chew it until it gets into a wax.
00:24 Magnolia flowers are in abundance in the woods right now so I grabbed a broken stem and got
00:28 some flowers home to prepare them.
00:30 I took the stem out because it can be bitter, rinsed the petals off and rolled them up
00:33 and sliced them up cabbage style and prepared them with some sliced cabbage slaw, carrots,
00:38 some apple cider vinegar and some sea salt.
00:40 I make dinner homemade every day usually finding forest finds from our woods.
00:44 These are chanterelle mushrooms, some of the most prized and expensive used by Michelin
00:48 chefs all over the world.
00:49 We live on a six acre food forest or pretty much a prima culture farm and what that means
00:53 is most of the things that we harvest don't take any cultivation from us.
00:56 In less than 30 minutes we picked over 3.8 pounds worth of mushrooms.
01:00 I was taken out of the home at 7 and I aged on a kinship carrot at 16 and being a homeless
01:04 teen parent I know what it feels like to experience food insecurity and the reason I teach foraging
01:09 is because I don't think anybody in the entire world should ever go to bed hungry and I feel
01:14 like if more people knew that there was food surrounding them that it would be more accessible
01:19 and there'd be less people going to bed hungry at night.
01:22 Next we gotta let the pacas out of their enclosure.
01:24 As most of y'all know we are a rescue farm and his brother old man Chance recently passed
01:28 away and he will be getting three more brothers before the end of the year.
01:34 And I'm also gonna grab some magic beans which is alpaca poop our number one seller our alpaca
01:38 fertilizer.
01:39 Yes we sell sh*t.
01:40 These berries are called beauty berries.
01:42 There's no mistake as to why they're called beauty berries but the genus is called calicarpa
01:46 americana.
01:47 Let's talk about the taste profile.
01:48 Eaten raw they're not very palatable.
01:50 Cooked they make delicious jam wine jellies and one of our favorite recipes that we actually
01:55 make here on the farm.
01:56 It's actually one of our biggest sellers here and we make beauty berry jam.
01:59 One thing that most don't know about beauty berries is that their leaves are just as beneficial
02:03 as the berries if not more.
02:05 When crushed their leaves secrete an oil that's more beneficial than any repellent I've ever
02:09 experienced on the market.
02:10 Many of you have asked how we are not getting ate up by mosquitoes here on our farm and
02:13 this is our secret.
02:14 We make our own repellent salve and spray right here on the farm.
02:17 We have hundreds of beautiful berries here on our farm and that is actually what protects
02:21 us from mosquitoes as well.