

I grew up in South Dakota. Real food came from someone you knew. Slow living wasn't a trend — it was just Tuesday.
These days I live tucked into the Idaho mountains, off-grid by design. I have a flock of birds I hatched from eggs I collected from birds I raised. I have an indoor grow room and a greenhouse. I source feed with no soy, no corn, no seed oils. My birds free-range on actual Idaho ground every single day.
I didn't move here for the aesthetic. I moved here because the further I got from the supply chain, the better I felt about what I was putting in my body.

I grow what I eat because I don't trust what I can't trace.
I hatch my own flock because I want to know every part of the chain — what the parent birds ate, what the ground looked like, what went into the egg that went into my breakfast.
I source feed I can read the label on and actually understand. I grow mealworms for my birds because I'd rather know the protein source than trust a bag that says "natural ingredients."
This isn't a hobby. It's the most deliberate thing I do.

I'm not interested in chasing followers.
I'm interested in building a community of people who are asking the same questions I'm asking and doing something about it.
People who are done outsourcing their food supply to a system they don't fully trust.
People who are curious enough to look into it and stubborn enough to do something about it.
If that's you — you found the right page.
Because I'm not here to sell you a fantasy — I'm living the real thing.
I didn't grow up doing this. I learned the hard way: one frozen waterer, failed hatch, and rogue rooster at a time.
I built my homestead from scratch. Off-grid. In the mountains. With no blueprint and a lot of trial and error.
Here's what I know now that I didn't know then:
The information is out there. But most of it is either dressed up past the point of being useful, or so overwhelming it makes you want to give up before you start.
I share everything — what worked, what failed, what I'd do differently. From mealworms to meat birds. Soil to coop automation. Incubation humidity to lockdown day 18.
I'm not a guru. I'm someone who got fed up with the system, decided to build a way out of it, and documented everything along the way so you don't have to figure it all out alone.
Growing your own food is the most radical act of self-preservation we have left. I take that seriously, and you should too.
So if you want someone who gets it — someone who's walked through the overwhelm and is still walking, still building, still learning — You're in the right place.


Because Googling every chicken question at midnight isn’t a strategy.
My "Hatch to Harvest" course is the guide I wish I had when I started. Googling your way through a hatch at midnight isn't a system. It's a prayer.
I built Hatch to Harvest because when I started, I couldn't find a single resource that covered the full process — from picking the right egg to harvest day — without either dumbing it down or leaving out the parts that matter.
This is the course I built for myself and made available because you deserve more than a patchwork of YouTube videos and Facebook group opinions.
Everything from brooder setup to harvest. Every step in order. Hard-earned from doing it myself, off-grid, without a team.
It's not for people who want to dabble. It's for people who are ready to raise their own meat, know exactly what they're eating, and stop depending on a supply chain they can't see.
If you've ever felt any of this — keep reading...
Overwhelmed by conflicting advice and not sure who to actually trust.
Frustrated by courses that cost a lot and assume you already know things.
Ready to raise your own food but not sure where the first step is.
Done trusting labels and wanting to know the full chain from seed, egg, or chick to what's on your plate.
Suspicious that the food system isn't as stable as everyone says — and wanting to build something that doesn't depend on it.
I've been all of those things.
I'll walk you through every part of this — chickens, food, systems, sourcing — with clear practical steps from someone who's done it the hard way and figured out what actually works.
This isn't about being perfect. It's about being less dependent. One bird, one harvest, one skill at a time.


I had silver fillings most of my life. I thought they were safe. But nobody told me they were 50% mercury.
For years I felt slow. Exhausted no matter how much I slept. I first really noticed it in college — working full time and going to school full time. I told myself it was burnout. I told myself that's just what adulting felt like.
I normalized it completely. It wasn't burnout. It was my body quietly fighting a constant heavy metal exposure — one that had been sitting in my mouth for years.
Those "silver" fillings your dentist gave you as a kid? They're not silver. They're approximately 50% mercury, mixed with silver, tin, and copper.
Mercury vapor is continuously released from these fillings — and it doesn't just stay in your mouth. Research shows it passes directly through the blood-brain barrier, where it can accumulate in brain tissue. The half-life of inorganic mercury in the brain is estimated to be years — not days, not weeks. Years.
Most conventional dentists have been placing these in people's mouths for over 150 years and calling them safe. Meanwhile, over 150 countries have signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury — an international treaty specifically aimed at phasing out dental amalgam because of environmental and health concerns.
Draw your own conclusions.
I could have kept living with the brain fog. I had normalized it so completely that I didn't even know it was there anymore — it was just life.
But here's what I couldn't ignore:
When you're pregnant, your body detoxes heavy metals directly into the placenta.
That means even if you're doing everything right — clean food, filtered water, no unnecessary exposures, skipping vaccines — if you have mercury fillings, there is still a direct pathway for heavy metal contamination to your baby. Before they ever take their first breath.
That was a hard no for me.
This is where most people get it wrong. You can't just walk into any dentist and say "take them out." If amalgam removal isn't done correctly, you actually spike your mercury exposure during the removal process — breathing in vapors that are released when the fillings are drilled out.
Safe removal requires a specific protocol:
Rubber dams to prevent swallowing debris
Sectioning the filling into chunks rather than grinding
High-volume evacuation to capture vapors
Supplemental oxygen in some cases
Proper detox support before and after
I had my amalgam fillings safely removed at BioSmiles in Eagle, Idaho, under the care of Dr. Sam Petersen — a biological dentist who uses exactly this kind of protocol. He's fluoride-free, mercury-free, and treats dentistry as what it actually is: a whole-body health issue.
The brain fog I had normalized for years lifted.
I didn't know how heavy that weight was until it was gone. The slowness, the exhaustion that didn't match how much I slept, the feeling of operating under a cloud — it cleared.
I'm not going to sit here and promise you that removing your fillings will fix everything. Bodies are complicated. But I will tell you that for me, the change was real and noticeable — and I wish someone had told me about this years ago.
If you've had silver fillings most of your life and you've been dealing with brain fog, unexplained fatigue, or just a feeling of never quite being sharp — I'd encourage you to look into biological dentistry.
Ask about:
Safe amalgam removal protocol — make sure they follow one
Biocompatibility testing — to see how your body responds to different dental materials
What support you need during and after removal — detox matters
If you're in the Treasure Valley, I can't recommend BioSmiles enough. Dr. Sam Petersen is the real deal.
📍 BioSmiles — Eagle, Idaho | @theboisenaturaldentist
This is part of my ongoing dental health series. Next up: what cavitations are, why most dentists miss them, and what happened when I had cavitation surgery on my wisdom teeth.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is my personal experience. Always do your own research and consult a qualified healthcare provider.
Annie's Homestead is not affiliated by Facebook™ in any way. Facebook™ is a registered trademark of Facebook™ Inc
Branding and Website by RoyalT Studio