The New York Survival Refuge FRNY on I AM Liberty

[00:00:00] What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be

[00:00:09] purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course

[00:00:18] others may take. As for me, give me liberty or give me death.

[00:00:47] Yes, as I told people, I had a gentleman here yesterday, Tuesday, now Sunday. What day was he

[00:00:55] here? He was here Saturday. Time is flying. And I told him I used almost all of his money to buy

[00:01:02] food. I bought, there's a company, foodassets.com and I used, they actually have a Hollerman

[00:01:10] special. You're familiar with Jonathan Hollerman, correct? Yeah. So yeah, he recommended

[00:01:16] foodassets.com. I went there. They have a Hollerman special. It includes, it's basically

[00:01:22] two million calories, which is enough for one year for one man, one woman and two children.

[00:01:29] And that's exactly what the gentleman who he leased the fortitude village lot,

[00:01:36] well say lot. So he gets about one acre of land here for 25 years.

[00:01:42] Right on. And so I now have food for his family and another group

[00:01:46] and I have about three years of food for my family. I love it, man.

[00:01:51] So yeah, if we have plenty of water, lots of springs on the property.

[00:01:57] So how do you feel about where you're at with the location?

[00:02:02] Location? I say location, location, location. Well, I mean, how do you feel about like

[00:02:08] how everything's set up? It's good. We're on from a main highway like 87 or 90 of the interstates.

[00:02:20] We're literally hours, over an hour away from both of those. And then we're, if you even

[00:02:25] got off of those, we're two to three roads off of any state route. So we're pretty good. We

[00:02:33] got 68 acres here and we're on a road. I actually considered putting a timer or camera on the road

[00:02:40] to count exactly how many cars go up and down our road each day, because if I had a hazard

[00:02:45] of guess, I would say under 20. Nice. So it may be a few more, but on my first call with

[00:02:53] Drew Miller back in the, wow, November of 2022, he said, is there a way you could block off

[00:02:59] the roads? And I said, I have the trees marked already. I was facetious, but I have looked at

[00:03:06] trees up and down my road many times and thought, okay, so I could quarter off my property

[00:03:16] or the entire road. And it would really depend on how on board it is. The other owners on

[00:03:25] this, there's actually our property or our road is 1.7 miles and we have seven houses on that

[00:03:34] road. Okay. I got you. So it's a pretty, pretty sparse population and out of those seven houses,

[00:03:40] only four are full-time residents. The other three are not seasonal, but they're up here

[00:03:46] every weekend, every, well, actually our closest neighbor is only here once every month or two.

[00:03:52] Do you know?

[00:03:52] So that's good. I do. He's a good gentleman. He and his wife have two children, elementary school,

[00:03:59] and I've told others that if things go well, I may ask, offer to buy his property from him.

[00:04:06] Things are happening in our community here that are just unbelievable to me with

[00:04:14] neighbors reaching out and neighbors being neighborly. And it's really interesting, man.

[00:04:22] It's good. The common person seems to be like acutely aware of the fact that it's time

[00:04:30] to build relationships again in neighborhoods. And that's a really good sign. That's a really,

[00:04:36] and that's not like, it's not because I'm holding meetings in my community every week

[00:04:41] or month or anything like that. It's just organic. It's a good sign. It is.

[00:04:46] It is. Out of the four full-time residents here, one unfortunately it's an elderly couple,

[00:04:54] and the husband just died last week. He was 89 years old. He was the oldest resident in our,

[00:05:00] the oldest person I knew in our area. And his wife and son are still living in the house.

[00:05:05] And two others at the other end of the road are, one is former military, did,

[00:05:12] I can't say black ops, but he did operations in Afghanistan before he retired. And then the

[00:05:19] other one's a former NYPD. So they've got their own skills. And I'm actually hiring the military

[00:05:26] guy to do excavation on my property, on Fortitude Ranch property for that matter.

[00:05:31] And he's dependable, good worker, expensive, but everything is getting expensive nowadays.

[00:05:40] Yeah, the unique angle that Fortitude Ranch offers the person who owns it is

[00:05:48] you kind of build your own survival community right there. You know what I mean?

[00:05:52] Yes. Every dollar that comes into Fortitude Ranch goes into building up Fortitude Ranch.

[00:06:00] So the buildings are built out, the food is built out. The gentleman here who's here on

[00:06:06] Saturday with his, just his son, his wife and daughter were at a ballet event. But he was

[00:06:13] asking about water. And I said the next funds that come in, I'm going to see about putting

[00:06:16] another well on our property. And the challenge is with that, I'll be looking at solar. And

[00:06:26] after that event two weeks ago, I'm nervous about electricity because that solar,

[00:06:32] we dodged a bullet with that. Yeah, I might put solar lower on the list, man.

[00:06:39] Yeah, it's um, I have, my family has five generators right now. And we have,

[00:06:48] one of them is actually inside the trunk of a 66 Plymouth car. And that metal is about

[00:06:57] an eighth of an inch thick. It's, I don't know if it'll act as a Faraday cage, but it is,

[00:07:04] yeah, that's my backup of a backup. Although if something does happen to blow,

[00:07:08] blow up all the electrical stuff, we, the only thing I really will depend on it,

[00:07:13] I hope that doesn't blow are my cordless tools. Tim the Tool Man mentions all the time how,

[00:07:19] Oh yeah. They are almost a necessity. Yeah. And I used a hand saw to cut down a bunch

[00:07:25] of saplings a couple days ago. And yeah, I'm cutting down about a hundred, just a bow saw.

[00:07:32] Okay. Yeah. It's just a little bit of exercise there, but as I'm cutting it,

[00:07:38] I think I bought a trimming blade for my Sawzall years ago and that is so fast.

[00:07:48] It's nice. It'll cut a one inch sapling in like, I don't even know, two seconds,

[00:07:52] three seconds. It's fast. And I'll tell you, don't underestimate a good,

[00:07:59] like a good thin blade hatchet on saplings. I actually had a hatchet in my hand just before

[00:08:07] that and I was thinking, well, what I'm cutting, some of them are so thin that they'll flex,

[00:08:11] they'll flex when I hit with the hatchet. Yeah. Like almost like a tactic. I have this

[00:08:17] hatchet that Kershaw used to make. They don't make it anymore. Okay. It's super thin tactical,

[00:08:26] you know, kind of looking hatch. It's goofy looking. It's not like a tool,

[00:08:31] but I do take it camping for saplings for that reason. Like it's got a point on the back,

[00:08:36] you know, it's one of those goofy, you know, like kill zombie hatchets,

[00:08:40] but it's a really, actually a really cool older tool that I use all the time when I

[00:08:45] go camping because of that, because I hit the, I strike the saplings in like a downward as opposed

[00:08:51] to a sideward strike. Yep. You know what I mean? Yeah, go with the grain. Yeah. Man, it's two

[00:08:58] strikes and those things will be down because the blade's nice and thin. I bet I could pull

[00:09:02] the same results off with like a, I don't know, maybe like a 18 inch or even shorter machete,

[00:09:11] a good thin machete might be a cool way to take down. If you, if you got more of that work to do

[00:09:15] and you're worried about, you know, power tools and that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah. My tractor,

[00:09:21] my brush hog has cut a lot of saplings and if it's level ground, it's great,

[00:09:27] but where I was cutting these, it was literally in a ditch and on a culvert where a culvert is

[00:09:34] and I tried doing it with my tractor a couple years ago and I got it stuck. Well,

[00:09:39] I did get it out, but it was close and the alternative, I have a string trimmer which

[00:09:48] will take out, it'll take out thin like quarter inch saplings. That's how strong it is.

[00:09:54] And I've thought about getting a blade for one of those because the blade cuts through a lot.

[00:09:58] So, but I haven't gone that far yet. So, but the other investment. You're doing the land

[00:10:05] management and everything. Yeah. Just on your own. Yeah. Still on my own, looking for,

[00:10:13] not looking for full-time ranch managers right now, but I sent out a few emails,

[00:10:16] a few feelers out for assistant ranch managers on a part-time basis. Maybe on a few hours on

[00:10:23] weekends and if there's a, if they have time during the week just to be like supervisors

[00:10:29] in a supervisory position because I do have workers that I'm paying on site. They're

[00:10:34] working, we're converting a barn into our first housing unit. And that's, it's turning out to be

[00:10:40] a bigger job than I planned because we have to literally remove, let's see, 40 by 60, close to

[00:10:46] 2000 feet, 2000 square feet of concrete in the ground floor. So we're close to halfway done

[00:10:53] with that and then once that's done, we have to put plumbing in and pour new foundation.

[00:11:00] Oh, so actually level the barn as well. Some of the columns have sunk because of the deterioration.

[00:11:10] So is there a matter of standard with these? It sounds like you're, from what I know about

[00:11:19] the West Virginia location, it sounds like your head is in an even more

[00:11:29] on-grid sort of capability for these structures.

[00:11:34] I want them to be, when we built our house here, we started in 2015, I told my wife I wanted

[00:11:41] the most rustic, simple build design and she's a landscape architect. And she works for people who

[00:11:50] they're not bottomless pits of money, but they do have higher standards. And so

[00:11:57] yeah, because she did, she worked for all those people, she wanted a nicer quality house here.

[00:12:02] And unfortunately I jumped on the bandwagon and so I'm like, okay, let's do this. I'd like,

[00:12:08] I want cameras all around the house. Why don't we do outdoor speakers? Let's do indoor speakers.

[00:12:14] And before we knew it, we became a high tech house. And I tell my wife I wore it, I say,

[00:12:21] you know what, there could be a day where we won't have any of these conveniences.

[00:12:26] And I tell, we have a nine-year-old daughter and I tell her the same thing. I was teaching

[00:12:31] her like inch bag, I'm never coming home. Good bag, get out of Dodge. And Tietwocki,

[00:12:38] it's like the end of the world as we know it. And for us as Americans, we have such,

[00:12:44] we've set such a high bar for our quality of life where a lot of the world doesn't have

[00:12:49] electricity. They don't have indoor plumbing. They don't have a lot of these things that

[00:12:53] we just consider the bare minimum. And so yeah, for a few years I was a ski instructor and lived

[00:13:03] in that exact barn for like three months a year, like two weekends at a time or two weeks at a

[00:13:07] time. And in winter there was no running water. So I literally had a wood burning stove for heat

[00:13:12] and bottled water and like a camp toilet. So I'm kind of prepared for that. I don't want to

[00:13:20] go there. I pray, I hope and pray that Fortitude Ranch is a last resort that we will never

[00:13:28] absolutely need. But the thing is if we do need it, it's the place to be.

[00:13:34] I love it man. And your location, you obviously aren't going to give the

[00:13:39] exact location out to our audience, but what region of New York if people are considering?

[00:13:47] If you draw a from New York City, we're about three and a half hours from Albany,

[00:13:55] Northwest. We're in the Catskills. Okay. And from Albany we're an hour give or take.

[00:14:02] So we're, but I'd say about an hour north of the southern border. I know when Dave Jones

[00:14:09] was initially talking about this location, he's like right on the Pennsylvania border.

[00:14:13] We're not on the border. Yeah, we're closer than Buffalo that's for sure. Well,

[00:14:19] I don't know about Buffalo. Buffalo has Pennsylvania and Ohio right there. So

[00:14:23] yeah, we're in a good location. So you said you're about three hours

[00:14:28] northwest of New York City? Yes. Okay. I like that. That's a good distance away from the

[00:14:35] big city. Not too many people are going to make it out of the city. Three and a half hours

[00:14:41] in desperation and collapse. So I don't think you'll have streams of people to deal with in

[00:14:46] that area. Yeah, a lot of people in New York don't have vehicles and that's something we

[00:14:53] kind of depend on. But at the same time, well, what do you call it? Complacency

[00:15:02] and normalcy bias. Oh yeah. When Sandy hit back in what was it 2011? Yeah, I don't keep

[00:15:12] tracking the storms very well. But yeah, they lost power down there for a few days. And

[00:15:18] actually a friend of mine, his brother-in-law had a restaurant down in New Jersey and they lost

[00:15:25] power. 2012. Okay. Yeah, my friend got a phone call saying, hey, all the generators are sold

[00:15:33] out down here. I'm going to lose thousands in meat and food products. Can you buy a generator

[00:15:37] up there where you are and bring it down to me? And he's like, yeah, I can do that.

[00:15:41] And he went to the store and was looking at generators and they were talking and then power

[00:15:46] came back and he called back. I don't know how many days this was, but he called back

[00:15:51] and said, hey, I don't need the generator anymore. Well, what do you mean? Power came back.

[00:15:55] Well, I'm still going to buy the generator because it's for next time. He's like,

[00:15:58] oh, it's never going to happen again. And it's like, buy the insurance policy. Get it.

[00:16:07] That's great. You never need it. And yeah, I got one one time. The first one we got,

[00:16:15] the first generator we ever bought, this was, I think this was pre-prepper for me. This

[00:16:19] might have been like 2011. I was on my way, but I didn't know really quite what I was doing yet.

[00:16:26] And I bought it and I'll never forget my brother-in-law was befuddled by it.

[00:16:33] He was helping me carry it from the car to where we keep it. And he was like,

[00:16:40] why did you buy this? It was like I had bought a hot air balloon.

[00:16:47] You know, right. It's just a portable generator. And he was looking at me and he had been like

[00:16:53] fresh out of the Iraq war. You know what I mean? And he was looking at me. Why did you buy this?

[00:17:00] Because we had literally it got to a point, Frank, in our neighborhood. It's not like that

[00:17:05] anymore. Thank God. But it got to a point where if it was thunderstormy, we were losing

[00:17:10] power. It was a guarantee. And I was just like, God, we need a generator. This is madness.

[00:17:18] I'll never forget that the way he looked at that thing. It was like I bought a nuclear bomb.

[00:17:26] What are you going to do with this? What are you even planning on doing with this thing?

[00:17:30] They might have a flashlight or two in the house. They might have a few candles,

[00:17:34] but a generator. We don't need a generator. And we're on a local co-op here with I forget that

[00:17:41] we went to the main headquarters and talked to the CEO because my wife was

[00:17:46] livid because we'd lost power for three days. And we lose power about once every month or two

[00:17:52] here. Branches blow down, cars hit poles. It's crazy how many times we lose power. Luckily,

[00:17:59] we have a full-time house generator that runs on propane. And we've got two 1,000 gallon tanks

[00:18:05] for propane. So we're pretty well set there. But we saw all the maps. He showed us all the

[00:18:13] lines and we are at the very end of one of the last lines. And so if anything breaks in

[00:18:20] between anywhere between the source of the power and us, we're the last to get the power back.

[00:18:26] So that's why we have as many generators as we do. But sometimes I'll just walk around and I'll

[00:18:33] need a tool of some kind and I'll grab it. And I think to myself, most people don't even know

[00:18:39] what this is because on a farm it's amazing how many times you need just twine, paracord,

[00:18:45] a knife. So many things that most people wouldn't even care. I mean, I don't have it

[00:18:51] on me. Now you usually have a knife in each pocket. And if one's dull for cutting dull

[00:18:57] things and one's razor sharp, it'll touch the blade, it'll cut your skin. So yeah, being

[00:19:03] prepared. I guess it kind of started with me being a sailor. I've sailed since 1995.

[00:19:10] Oh, I know that gives you a leg up for sure. You don't have it on the boat.

[00:19:16] Right. If you don't have it when the boat leaves the dock, you're not going to get it.

[00:19:19] And even at the docks I go to now, it's a challenge to get off the boat because we're

[00:19:25] at oil terminals. And the oil terminal, the coast guard says that the rule for the coast guard says

[00:19:30] any sailor is allowed to get off his boat for a port call. And the oil company says that's

[00:19:35] absolutely fine. You just can't get off on our dock. And that's the only way to get off

[00:19:40] the boat. So we have to contact our company. Our company has to send the fax to the oil

[00:19:45] company. The oil company approves it, contacts our company again. Our company contacts us and says,

[00:19:51] okay, the list of people you gave us are allowed off the boat. And if they forgot a person,

[00:19:59] that person stays on the boat. And nobody wants to stay on the boat, I'm sure.

[00:20:05] Well, most of the time we just stay there because it's such a challenge.

[00:20:09] But yeah, speaking of generators, when you're on a boat, you're not hooked up to a land line.

[00:20:14] So the only way you have electricity is running a generator. So for the last 25, almost 30 years

[00:20:21] now, I've depended well half that time. So 15, 18 years of my life has been that long now.

[00:20:30] Half of 20, my math's off right now. 12 and a half.

[00:20:34] Yes, half of my life has been spent at sea. Not quite half. There's times where I take

[00:20:39] a hiatus for six months or something. Half of that time has been depending on a generator.

[00:20:47] And being the engineer, I was the one who had to make sure it ran or else the boat would be in

[00:20:51] the dark and we'd be dead ship. Kind of like that Baltimore vessel. Yeah.

[00:20:59] That breeds a certain kind of person. No doubt it's a much different thing than somebody

[00:21:03] who's living in a big city that almost never loses power and can have anything delivered to

[00:21:07] their front door whenever they want. Right? And that's normal sea bias.

[00:21:11] You're almost like two different species. Yes. Yeah, I was interviewed by a New York Times

[00:21:17] reporter two weeks ago. Oh, great. And he asked me about membership. Yeah,

[00:21:22] Alexander Nazarian. How was he? Did he seem crazy out of New York Times?

[00:21:27] No. He's an interesting character. He basically told me, I forget what his backup was. I spoke

[00:21:36] to a bunch of people and I spoke to one person who had a couple cases of water and some a little

[00:21:43] bit of food. And I'm just thinking to myself, that'll get you by for about three days, which

[00:21:47] is what FEMA says. Have three days. But now he was on board. He was excited. And when I

[00:21:54] told him I lived in a geodesic dome or we live in a geodesic, he's like, you live in

[00:21:58] a dome home? I've got to come out there even if I don't see anything else. I've got to see

[00:22:03] that. But yeah, we spoke for close to 90 minutes. And he was excited. And he asked me what there

[00:22:13] was to see here and I told him we're still in pioneers mode right now. We're building things,

[00:22:19] but it's slow going. And by the membership that we have, I told them I'll have food for you,

[00:22:25] I'll have water for you and I'll have a dry place to stay to sleep. And even if it's in

[00:22:30] our home, our garage, our barn, before it's converted into housing units.

[00:22:36] One thing that we're different, we are a franchise location. Tennessee and New York

[00:22:41] are franchises and the other five locations are corporate. We have a little more leeway

[00:22:47] in what we can do. So when my wife and I first, when we first bought this property,

[00:22:53] our plan was to turn the barns into an Airbnb. And then we decided to build the

[00:22:57] dome first. And we put everything into this structure. It's amazing. We love it.

[00:23:04] And now we're turning the barn into housing for Fortitude Ranch, but my wife didn't want

[00:23:10] that to happen. She's like, if you do it, you're going to do it right. I want the Airbnb

[00:23:14] design. So we kind of met in the middle. So she wants higher end rooms, first and second

[00:23:22] floor. And then if we go, by the time we're ready for the third floor, we may actually

[00:23:27] build a Viking Lodge, which is Drew Miller's design, which is two log cabins separated

[00:23:32] and connected by a connector unit. And that can house up to 100 people. So we may build,

[00:23:39] instead of building a third floor in the barn, we may build that. And we've got plenty

[00:23:44] of room for it. Separate of the barn altogether? Separate. Yes, that'll be a good,

[00:23:50] not a quarter mile, but probably about 500 feet away. Okay, yeah, that's a good move.

[00:23:56] And I like that, man. That's really cool. Do you guys have a standalone website or are

[00:24:02] you guys linked off of the fortidranch.com? We're still depending on fortidranch.com.

[00:24:10] I actually got an email last night from the COO asking for pictures because they

[00:24:14] want to send out a group email showing pictures of all of the ranches. Oh, nice.

[00:24:18] So we may go independent. We do have Fortitude Ranch New York Facebook page.

[00:24:25] But it's inactive at this time. I haven't put much up there at all. Actually, I haven't put it.

[00:24:30] Fortitude Ranch Tennessee, Chris, the ranch manager down there actually set it up.

[00:24:36] And the thing is, I want to show progress on this property and that's one thing.

[00:24:42] I've got thousands of pictures and I've got to put those up to show what we've

[00:24:46] accomplished before even Fortitude Ranch happened. And then what we've done since

[00:24:51] Fortitude Ranch starting last year. So how do you feel like when I met you

[00:25:05] in person a year ago at the Freber camp, this was one of those situations where it was like,

[00:25:13] this is on the horizon. And for people who don't know, your demeanor is such that you look like

[00:25:22] the type of guy that could build a fortitude ranch by himself. You're a high energy dude.

[00:25:29] I can appreciate it. So I'm meeting you for the first time and watching this take place.

[00:25:36] And now that you're in the thick of it, I'm interested in what's going on in your head.

[00:25:43] Are you feeling? How are you feeling?

[00:25:47] I'm excited. A year ago, well September, that was proper camp in September.

[00:25:54] And the following month we actually had an open house. And we did a bunch of stuff, set up

[00:26:01] display rooms and did a lot of work. And it was a no show. Nobody showed up for it.

[00:26:10] And it was actually depressing because I've literally emptied out a lot of stuff out

[00:26:14] of the barn that was valuable to me, but not the Fortitude Ranch. And it's been slow going,

[00:26:20] but we have our first members now. And it was a small influx of cash. It allowed me to do

[00:26:27] a bunch of small things. And I'm nervous that we won't be prepared. When that solar storm

[00:26:35] hit last week, I was scared. I was 200 miles away in Providence, Rhode Island on my boat.

[00:26:42] And the funniest thing is I wrapped my phone in plastic and stuck it in a garbage can

[00:26:49] so I would have an MP3 player on my long walk back from Providence.

[00:26:56] I had plenty of food and water and supplies on the boat to get to walk back home.

[00:27:02] And I told my wife, I said, best case we have wonderful light shows.

[00:27:09] Worst case, I'm walking home. And that's something I've dealt with probably since Y2K.

[00:27:19] Might be time to invest in one of those e-bikes you can park at the dock.

[00:27:23] Well, that's the thing. We do have bicycles. Well, no, I moved to another boat. In Texas,

[00:27:31] we had bicycles. And I have an exercise bike on the boat that I'm on now, but I don't have a

[00:27:38] physical bike. But yeah, that's something. It's funny you say that there's a bicycle in our

[00:27:44] locker. One of my coworkers did bring a bike to the boat. So.

[00:27:49] We bombed around on Ben the Breaker of Bankster's e-bike up and down the mountain at Dave Jones'

[00:27:55] couple years ago. And I can say the utility, man. I could definitely for a almost exactly

[00:28:02] for a situation that you're discussing getting from Rhode Island to the Catskill Mountains

[00:28:08] in an emergency like kind of cool. And I guess if I had one, I don't have an e-bike,

[00:28:14] but if I had one, I'd take the battery off and put that thing in my maybe in like a EMP-proof

[00:28:22] dry bag or something like that and keep that with me. You know what I mean? Something

[00:28:27] you do or something like that were hit. Here's what I've been wondering,

[00:28:30] though, about these solar storms and subsequent EMPs shutting down the electricity.

[00:28:37] I'm starting to wonder, like, is the electricity even going to be our biggest problem?

[00:28:46] Because that was a big storm. And a lot of things happened and not a lot of things.

[00:28:53] It did trigger in my podcast I did this morning, I mentioned that it did trigger

[00:28:58] like the largest earthquake near the Italian supervolcano in 40 years.

[00:29:09] That blast of energy hitting Earth because it affects the quartz in the ground. But I'm starting

[00:29:16] to wonder, like, you know, are we hyper focused on EMP equals off grid when we could see,

[00:29:24] you know, much more perilous things like earthquake type events, natural disasters,

[00:29:30] and maybe even things that affect us directly? Like I'm starting to wonder,

[00:29:37] do we need EMP protection? Like the human body.

[00:29:42] You know, I had a conversation with some workers. My boat's in dry dock right now

[00:29:47] and we're prepping. We're at a cleaning facility and I was talking to them about this

[00:29:52] EMP coming. And they're like, well, what will it do to the human body? I said, not much.

[00:30:00] We are electrical, but we've been pretty much standing in daylight and sunlight for millennia.

[00:30:07] So our bodies won't get affected by it. But metallic things, things that conduct electricity,

[00:30:13] well, our bodies if we touch a hot wire, we do feel it.

[00:30:17] I don't know. I didn't think about, I was hearing about the quartz. I don't know if it was

[00:30:23] from you or from Sarah, but yeah, world events. I think the worst thing about losing electricity

[00:30:29] is the human reaction in terms of supplies won't be able to be delivered if vehicles

[00:30:37] don't run. The cities will become, sorry to say, but death traps unless you get out of the

[00:30:43] cities. People, I mean, look at San Francisco now. My sister-in-law is here right now from

[00:30:48] New York City. She lives right in Lower Manhattan or Upper East Side. I bet she's got some stories.

[00:30:52] And she is seeing that this happened. And for her, she doesn't have a driver's license,

[00:30:58] she doesn't have a vehicle. So she takes the bus back and forth. But if something big happens,

[00:31:03] who knows if the buses will be running. So yeah, that's the cities are, a lot of them

[00:31:09] are in dire straits without a disaster. They look almost post-apocalyptic and nothing's happened

[00:31:18] other than left-wing liberal policies. You know what I mean?

[00:31:21] I get nervous. I do. When I'm in a city, I mean, I crew change in cities.

[00:31:25] And when all I see is asphalt, concrete, and buildings, and glass, and there's no plants

[00:31:31] around, there's like a tree every block or so. Not even that. It just feels so unnatural

[00:31:37] to me now. Yeah, I don't have that feeling. But I do have a vigilance in cities that

[00:31:45] is definitely elevated. You know what I mean?

[00:31:49] Situational awareness, absolutely. Yeah, big time.

[00:31:52] I mean, people are getting attacked left and right. People just walk up behind you. And

[00:31:56] if you're not paying attention, you got your earbuds in. The next thing you know,

[00:32:00] you may wake up in a hospital or you may not wake up at all.

[00:32:04] I was always scared when I worked and went to school in Philly. Always. Not scared,

[00:32:12] shaking, frightened. But I was always vigilant. I'd never felt like, unless it was maybe midday

[00:32:18] and I'm walking through Center City. But I traveled the city a lot at night. I traveled

[00:32:23] the city a lot in the subway. And there was always just that feeling of like,

[00:32:28] you know, keep your head on a swivel, man. You're in Philly. You know what I mean?

[00:32:34] When I was going to school, West Philadelphia was going through just an absolute murder fest.

[00:32:42] It was bad. It was really bad around 2004, 2005. I think that was the year that we coined

[00:32:48] the phrase Kill-a-delphia. That was as crazy as it was in that time. I'm sure,

[00:32:54] I don't know if it's worse now with murders, but then again, Frank, the problem with the cities

[00:32:59] now is they're run by these invalids. I don't trust that they're taking data down correctly.

[00:33:08] I don't trust that the cops are working the way that they worked in 2004 and I don't trust

[00:33:16] that the data is right. So in other words, if they say, yeah, we had X amount of robberies

[00:33:21] or X amount of burglaries or X amount of rapes, X amount of murders. I look at the number and I'm

[00:33:24] like, I don't know. Who up there is fudging the stats so it doesn't look as bad as it is

[00:33:31] or whatever? It's hard to trust that kind of stuff anymore because you know the leadership has

[00:33:36] no integrity. I was actually talking to my daughter about that yesterday. I said if 10

[00:33:42] people get robbed and those 10 people call the police, that's 10 reports of a robbery.

[00:33:51] Now if 100 people get robbed, but in between that, the police never show up, the police never take

[00:33:57] a report, the police don't do anything. Now there's 100 robberies, but out of those 100,

[00:34:02] only five call the police expecting help. Now instead of 10 reports, you only have 5 reports,

[00:34:08] even though there's 100 versus there's 10 times the crime, but only half the reports.

[00:34:14] And that's what's happening. The cops, the police in some of these cities are doing so

[00:34:18] little that the calls aren't going, people aren't calling the police anymore. So the

[00:34:23] crime rates, the reported crime rates are going down, but the crime is going up.

[00:34:28] And that's scary. Oh, that's super scary because you look at it, you look at the data

[00:34:34] and you say to yourself things aren't so bad. And then you see it with your own eyes

[00:34:40] and you're like I don't know though, it looks bad. You know? And how do you affect that?

[00:34:45] When you're doing budgetary stuff in a city or even in a county,

[00:34:50] you're allocating money, I'm sure, to law enforcement based on crime data.

[00:34:56] And if they're like we need more guys and they're like no you don't.

[00:35:00] Stats look fine. The crime is going down, you're doing a great job. I think we can

[00:35:03] strengthen police force. We don't need that many police and it's a self-propagating

[00:35:09] downfall, downward spiral. Yeah, I do think there's a limiting factor in it barring any

[00:35:15] major cataclysm. Like I do think if life continues as it's going, people are reaching a point,

[00:35:23] you know? They're reaching a wit's end point where I think the biggest thing that people

[00:35:29] are going to be pushing for going forward is just honesty. You know? I think after COVID

[00:35:36] and after the BLM riots and now with the wars and everything that they've seen

[00:35:43] since 2020, I think the public is hungry to not be in the position that I'm in and you're in,

[00:35:48] which is I don't know if I trust any numbers. I don't know if I trust the leadership.

[00:35:53] I don't know if I trust, you know what I mean? They're hungry to look out at the government

[00:35:58] or almost anything and say, you know what? I believe them. I think even if it's not good news,

[00:36:06] at least it's true and then we can work with that. Right. People grew up watching television

[00:36:12] for news. They grew up buying newspapers for news and they trusted it and unfortunately people,

[00:36:21] even though they know the TV is lying some of the time, they're like, oh, they're telling

[00:36:25] the truth most of the time. This multi-car pileup isn't fake news. So forget what the term is where

[00:36:33] they show somebody reading an article and they're like, that's so fake. That's so fake.

[00:36:37] That's so fake. And then they turn the page, read the next article and it's something they

[00:36:40] support. It's like, oh wow, that's all true. That's all true. That's all true. But even

[00:36:44] though some of it is true, there are still lies thrown in there. And that's what they

[00:36:49] depend on. Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias, exactly. And so people will, I mean,

[00:36:55] she turns the TV on first thing in the morning when she makes her coffee and she watches maybe

[00:36:59] 20 minutes of it. And I sit there watching it and I cringe because yeah, I know, I hear

[00:37:06] outright lies and then I hear things that could be true. And then you see, of course, accidents

[00:37:10] and certain things happen that are the truth. And I have a skewed sense of reality in some

[00:37:18] ways. And yeah, like you just said, confirmation bias. I trust the things I believe in

[00:37:24] even though they may not be true. So it's challenging. Oh, go ahead. Oh no, I was just

[00:37:35] talking to a friend of mine a couple days ago. I forget exactly what I said and she's like,

[00:37:39] I don't know if I always we had confirmation for one of our God children. We have three

[00:37:44] God children. And I was talking about that and she's like, I don't know if I believe in God.

[00:37:50] I don't have, I need facts. I need proof. And I thought to myself, and I was talking to my

[00:37:54] daughter, if I take your watch, I smash into a million pieces. How long will it take for that

[00:37:58] to reassemble itself into a watch? And she's like, never. Right now look at mother nature,

[00:38:04] look at all the things outside. It's the atheist say that this entire planet was designed

[00:38:11] just came to be just spontaneous creation or something. And it was hard to,

[00:38:20] if you can't touch it, it's hard to understand and people who live in their bubbles,

[00:38:26] in their cities, it's hard for them to understand things outside of that.

[00:38:33] And so when surrounded by the manmade, you know, when you live a life that's totally

[00:38:38] manmade, how easy is it for you to be like, yeah, we make everything.

[00:38:45] You know what I mean? We do everything, we make everything. What do you mean, God?

[00:38:49] You go out and spend time in the real world, which is the hinterlands,

[00:38:56] Catskill Mountains, for example, and you'll very quickly be able to be like, oh my,

[00:39:00] it's something much larger at play.

[00:39:04] Yes, there is. And a couple of weeks ago, my daughter lost a tooth. And yesterday she's like,

[00:39:12] I know the Easter bunny isn't real. I go, why, why is the Easter bunny real?

[00:39:16] Or not the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy. And I said, yeah, there are some things that

[00:39:19] are imaginary and there's some things that are real. And that's how the conversation about the

[00:39:23] watch, smashing the watch came to a belief in God. We don't see God as a person in person,

[00:39:32] but we can see the effects of God. And it's important to realize that we are very small

[00:39:39] creatures in this infinite, all but infinite universe. So, but make the most while we're

[00:39:47] here. That's what I say. Yeah, for me, nothing has been better

[00:39:53] for my relationship with God than having those, having those sort of intersections of

[00:40:02] disbelief and faith and then followed up with sort of research and looking at, but it's like,

[00:40:13] you know, seeking what's, I don't know, that's hard to explain.

[00:40:18] Believing and not believing have made me believe more. They've given me more faith,

[00:40:25] you know what I mean? Like, like trying because it takes for me, it took time. And I think it

[00:40:31] takes time the older you get to wrestle with those ideas, you know, and in that,

[00:40:40] it's like the Jacob renamed Israel and Jordan Peterson even put up this, I think he has a

[00:40:48] book out right now called We Who Wrestle With God. And that whole concept of wrestling with God,

[00:40:54] I think is actually the best way to do business. And you know, not in a way that you're like,

[00:41:01] he's real, he's not real. But I think a lot of people start there, especially if they

[00:41:06] find faith later in life. That's where a lot of people start, you know, it's like this

[00:41:10] peeking over a hedge, like, is there a God over there? All my life, I've been behind this

[00:41:15] hedge. And I know, I've always told myself there's no God over there. And then you start

[00:41:19] the peeking. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're climbing over that hedge and you're

[00:41:24] wrestling with those ideas that because I did this all through my 20s, just sort of wrestling

[00:41:30] with these ideas of faith and God and all that kind of stuff. And it seems like the more you

[00:41:36] do that, the deeper your faith becomes, which is really weird. Like the more you call things

[00:41:41] into question and then read the Bible, and then listen to biblical scholars and then also listen

[00:41:47] to detractors. I think that's important in everything, by the way, is you know, if you're

[00:41:51] really into something, you should be listening to the detractors. Like if you listen to,

[00:41:57] if you listen to the detractors on like freedom of speech, you listen to the real crazy

[00:42:05] left wingers, it's important to listen to them, man, because you can see right off the

[00:42:10] bat, like these people have no foundation and they're totally off base. Like they'll never last.

[00:42:15] You know, I read a quote from the Bible on, I think it was Sunday night or something like that.

[00:42:23] And it was it was a quote that talked about, you know, how the persecutors will not last

[00:42:29] long because they have no root. And that's, man, that's that's who we're dealing with

[00:42:35] right now. You know, there are people with no roots, they're shallow and

[00:42:39] it's just a I don't know, it's an interesting time for that. A lot of people come into God

[00:42:43] lately, Frank. It's not by accident and it's definitely not by, you know, it's not a coincidence.

[00:42:50] No, I was listening to Jack Spierko, one of his older podcasts, and he was talking about

[00:42:57] how when he was in high school, he was I don't know if it was on the debate team or

[00:43:01] if it was a class where he had to debate. And sometimes he was chosen to debate,

[00:43:06] all the students were to debate on the side they were against. And so they had to create a speech

[00:43:13] supporting everything that they were against and they had to find facts to support that and

[00:43:17] ideas to support that. And like you said, sometimes the detractors are the best way to

[00:43:22] grow because we look at what they say and it makes us think what basis in fact or what

[00:43:28] basis in reality or what basis in faith, where does that come from? And it makes our understanding

[00:43:34] deeper. And it's important to look that way. It's yeah, I watch all those news stations CNBC,

[00:43:42] MSN, MSN. It's even yeah, you watch them and you hear that stuff and it makes you go back

[00:43:51] to listening to like Tim Pool or anybody like that. And it's like wow, it's like night and day.

[00:43:59] But if you don't appreciate the night, you won't appreciate the day that much more.

[00:44:04] Yeah, oh it's important man. It's important to listen to the people who are supporting

[00:44:09] the ideas that you're against, you know, because and it's not even just so that you

[00:44:15] can say haha I'm right and do that confirmation bias business. You know, when I listen to people

[00:44:21] who don't align with me, I listen and I'm listening for things and I'm looking for things that I

[00:44:27] might agree with. You know what I mean? So I can say to myself like oh here's a thread of

[00:44:33] common ground which is way more important than you know figuring out what we disagree on.

[00:44:37] That's how I started listening to Russell Brand all those years ago. Like I started

[00:44:42] listening to Russell Brand I mean before he was on Rumble, before he was just starting on YouTube

[00:44:48] and he wasn't even really who he is now. But I heard those little threads. I could hear

[00:44:56] in the larger conversation, I could hear like you know what it is Frank when you start to

[00:45:03] get an understanding of what's really going on in the world. Like I could see that happening

[00:45:08] to him and I would tell you guys, I would tell the PBN audience, I'd be like I know it sounds

[00:45:12] crazy but Russell Brand is doing some crazy talk right now. He might be on our side before

[00:45:19] you know it because you can hear it. You can hear it in people. I didn't hear him in the early

[00:45:25] days. I heard him more recently and yeah I hear things that I don't really support with

[00:45:30] them but there's a lot of things I do support listening to him and when the left starts

[00:45:35] attacking somebody, there's a reason for that. That's a telltale sign right? Yes. Yeah their

[00:45:43] game plan is so transparent but uh so let's get back to Fortitude Ranch New York because I am

[00:45:50] interested in kind of like what can people sign up for? Like when they go to the

[00:45:56] fortituderanch.com site they go to the New York branch or location. I'm not sure the verbiage

[00:46:02] but what do they have the option to sign up for? Is there one membership? Is there multiple?

[00:46:08] There's multiple. It started out with economy or Spartan economy and luxury set rooms

[00:46:15] similar to the regular inside the ranch so the economy or the Spartan is the cheapest

[00:46:21] and Spartan it starts at about three thousand per year or I'm sorry three thousand dollars

[00:46:27] and that can be maiden payments and then about a thousand dollars a year and what that includes is

[00:46:33] if something happens and we've expanded the corporate ranches and the franchises say it

[00:46:40] doesn't have to be a Tietwocky event, an end of the world event. If your house burns down,

[00:46:45] if you face a personal emergency where you have to just get out for yourself,

[00:46:49] it's not the whole neighborhood or their whole town or city or whatever, you can still come

[00:46:54] to these ranches. You can still be supported here. You may not have all the access to all

[00:46:59] the facilities but if it's an emergency for your personal or family you can still come here

[00:47:06] and the economy is slightly larger room. Let me go back to Spartan for a moment.

[00:47:13] There's Spartan shared which means you literally just have a cot and probably a foot locker to

[00:47:17] keep your stuff in. Spartan private would be you're in a room maybe with some other people

[00:47:22] like in bunk bed style. Economy is again a larger room, a little bit more expensive.

[00:47:29] Luxury is the largest room and it includes a window and in some of the locations that

[00:47:37] window may only be to a hallway and we talked about it here and said if you pay for a luxury

[00:47:42] room here you get to see the outdoors. You get to see outside. We're not going to build any

[00:47:47] interior luxury rooms and then the luxury is the most expensive. It's probably tens of thousands

[00:47:55] of dollars for a family of four and then there's an annual food restocking fee so that's about

[00:48:02] $300 per person and then quarterly payments which all of that money is going into building

[00:48:10] Fortitude Ranch a bit bigger and better and recently we've opened up to, well I say

[00:48:16] recently, it's one of the originals Fortitude Village lots. If you want to be in an outside

[00:48:22] area a Fortitude Village lot and we offer it all the ranches is up to an acre of land

[00:48:28] and you can put a tiny home there. You can put an RV there. You can put just a shipping

[00:48:33] container or something whatever you want to put on that land it's yours to do with.

[00:48:37] Just don't turn it into a trailer, not trailer park trash. Don't you can't overload

[00:48:43] that acre with a whole bunch of stuff but I was talking to my the gentleman who just leased

[00:48:50] the lot it's a 25-year lease and they started $25,000 for 25 years and then beyond that you

[00:48:57] also pay the annual restock fee and the quarterly fee. We have four RV stations here

[00:49:04] with electricity, water, and propane so we offer that at New York. Wisconsin's Fortitude Ranch

[00:49:11] is actually built on a former park where they had a lot of RV stations, RVs, so they offer that

[00:49:18] there as well. And your RV rates are the same as like the luxury private right? They're not

[00:49:26] no they're not quite as high because you're covering your own housing in that in that area.

[00:49:30] If you want a membership sheet on the website and it's a little misleading that's why I'm

[00:49:34] bringing it up. Let's see it has the luxury private and the pricing and then it has the

[00:49:40] RV membership underneath of it with no pricing really and it's adjacent to the luxury private

[00:49:46] so it looks a little confusing right I don't know if I have that right here.

[00:49:53] You know your numbers so that's fine I just wanted to clarify that so people would know

[00:49:57] if they go look at this price sheet they say why do I pay the same for a luxury private

[00:50:02] room with a toilet and sink and everything as some guy who rolls up in an RV?

[00:50:08] Right yeah with the RV you're going to be paying for uh you're going to be if you pay if you use

[00:50:16] the electricity gas and water yeah you're going to be paying a higher price than if you

[00:50:20] uh what's it called boondocking if you just bring your RV here and you have all of your

[00:50:24] own services. We do recommend that if you have a Fortitude Village lot you do have it be

[00:50:31] independent power wise we have electricity running to our village to some of our village

[00:50:36] lots but we're also saying if we lose electricity that means you're going to lose electricity too

[00:50:41] so if you want to have power all the time have a generator have solar have batteries have

[00:50:45] whatever you need for your power requirements when there is no power and it may be temporary

[00:50:51] maybe permanent we don't we don't know and let's see so we got the private room

[00:50:59] La Cree County Spartan RV one thing that we've been tossing about between all of the ranches

[00:51:06] is somebody who doesn't have three thousand dollars to put down and say three hundred

[00:51:11] dollars a month or two hundred dollars a month for these for the fees. We've been offered

[00:51:15] something I don't have the name on it off the top of my head I apologize but it's basically

[00:51:20] you pay three hundred dollars a month and it gives you access to Fortitude Ranch it gives you

[00:51:26] in case of a collapse or something you can still come here but you're not paying all that money

[00:51:30] down and you're not going to get you're not going to get all of the benefits in terms of

[00:51:35] you're not going to have as much space as even a Spartan but you will have a place to stay

[00:51:40] and but what that guarantees you every membership will include one year food per person

[00:51:47] access to unlimited well not unlimited water but water a room or space for you to be in

[00:51:54] and storage place for weapons we do recommend that all members have weapons

[00:51:58] that's one thing that I've had lots of discussions with with potential members saying

[00:52:03] well I can't have a handgun in New York unless I have a permit and that's true you cannot have

[00:52:07] a handgun in New York you can have a rifle you can have a shotgun you just just like

[00:52:11] everywhere else you do a background check and once you pass that you can buy it we have

[00:52:16] a

[00:52:19] year and uh yeah we have not set the shooting range up but I was actually on the land a couple

[00:52:26] days ago marking out the territory for a potential 100 to 200 yard shooting range right

[00:52:33] on and yeah that's an essential especially if you get a bunch of people on hand

[00:52:39] that are out of New York in particular and they don't know how to use their gun

[00:52:44] you know what I mean right that's one thing we want to have at least an annual training and once

[00:52:50] we start growing I'd like to switch it to a monthly training first aid life saving

[00:52:55] food foraging firearms training sniping any type of survival skill that can be useful

[00:53:03] and basically have monthly classes on those things so maybe first aid stop the bleed one

[00:53:10] month maybe firearms training firearm safety self-defense and have events on a regular basis so

[00:53:17] one thing that I've heard about a lot of the ranches people will sign up they'll bring their

[00:53:21] supplies to the ranch and then they'll just never keep it in the back of their mind

[00:53:25] they'll never come up there they'll never never meet the other meet the other members

[00:53:32] won't go to trainings won't go to the events I want this to be a community where people when

[00:53:36] they if something happens when they arrive they're like hey Joe hey Steve hey Mark hey Julie

[00:53:42] they know everybody I mean that won't be the case with all of them it may not be the case

[00:53:46] with most of them but if we have a core contingent of people that know each other

[00:53:51] it'll be a lot easier to work our way through the apocalypse or any any other event

[00:53:57] whether it be a short-term event or long-term I like it man I would I've been locked down

[00:54:04] largely with the you know raising kid responsibilities as a dad but there definitely

[00:54:12] is quick coming a time where we'll probably see more of the nation and I'm interested in going to

[00:54:18] some more shows other than prepper camp every year and maybe something that would be fun to do

[00:54:23] would also be to hit the fortitude ranch locations and conduct some trainings for you guys

[00:54:28] you know what I mean so you could break up because I'm sure special guests and stuff like that would

[00:54:34] give people you know like they would they probably would love to hear from you and have you teach

[00:54:39] them a bunch of stuff too but I bet if you could send a newsletter out and say you know we got

[00:54:43] this guy coming this week and this guy coming the next week it might get some people to be

[00:54:47] like oh okay cool we'll go up there that could be that could be a good way to keep that

[00:54:52] engagement going absolutely yeah bringing people have creating interest and a reason to be up here

[00:55:01] one thing I failed to mention with forage you'd ranch with a membership you get 14 days at any

[00:55:07] one or all of the locations so up to 14 days meaning you can go to fortitude ranch new york

[00:55:13] for a week you could go to colorado for a week and or you could go to you can go to any

[00:55:18] of the ranches for up to 14 days up to a total of 14 days so we were talking about some of the

[00:55:25] locations like colorado if you want to rent an airbnb out there for the price of your membership

[00:55:31] you could make that up with just one year of staying in a nice place going to a colorado

[00:55:38] is uh is in not the middle of nowhere it's in a safe location so it would be a bit of a drive

[00:55:44] but when I was up there last September it was beautiful and I look forward to going there again

[00:55:50] been to colorado about five times in my life I think I saw more during my ranch manager training

[00:55:56] than I have in the other four times oh really it was yeah this ranch manager training last year

[00:56:02] there and uh it was it was great although the location of the ranch there was a wildfire there

[00:56:11] a few years ago and you see you see the devastation all the trees are burned or gone or burned down

[00:56:19] and it's just acres and acres miles of of burned down forests you know it could be

[00:56:25] luckily in disguise man because that becomes fertile land to grow food yeah it won't it

[00:56:31] won't burn again for a long time and the really cool part is where fortitude ranch was

[00:56:36] or where fortitude ranch is in colorado they protected their land and so because they worked

[00:56:42] to keep the fire away from their buildings when the firefighters were coming there they helped them

[00:56:47] out because they were willing to work alongside the firefighters and they did they did their due

[00:56:53] diligence so they got the they got the extra help where a lot of people lost their homes

[00:56:59] it's a huge deal man yeah it's a lot of it's a lot of responsibility I mean

[00:57:03] what you're doing is is I mean you're what you're doing is building a survival community

[00:57:08] from the ground up you know and it's it's an impressive thing to take on I'm glad to hear

[00:57:13] that you got people on staff a little bit to some degree giving you a helping hand up there

[00:57:18] yes yeah it's uh that's I think you see once in a while you'll drive down on the city of

[00:57:24] street and you'll see someone with a jackhammer jackhammering out I know I know

[00:57:28] what they go through now because jackhammering in a for a few minutes isn't bad at all but

[00:57:32] when you jackhammer for an hour it's uh it definitely builds muscles and wears you out

[00:57:39] and I can't imagine them doing it for eight hours a day out in the field say

[00:57:44] your brain's got to rattle loose a little yeah it can't be good it is amazing seeing how I mean

[00:57:53] people hit concrete all the time but it's amazing seeing how much destruction a jack

[00:57:57] hammer will do it'll just eat through that concrete nothing is it only eats out a very small

[00:58:03] it breaks a hole and it breaks up like a triangle piece of concrete away then you have to back up

[00:58:08] a little bit do another triangle another one another one and it's thousands upon thousands of

[00:58:13] those to get all that all that concrete out of there it's a hundred year old barn so that

[00:58:17] concrete's 100 years old the only blessing is that they did not put rebar in it they didn't

[00:58:23] it was only for cows so they didn't reinforce it reinforce that would have been a nightmare

[00:58:30] oh my I've never even thought of that breaking up concrete with rebar in it right yeah you

[00:58:37] literally have to trace the rebar to end to end and then rip that piece single piece out

[00:58:42] then go to the next piece and the next piece and uh I didn't think about it until we had

[00:58:47] like a 10 by 10 foot section out and there was no rebar in it it's like oh wow thank god that

[00:58:53] was that was a blessing yeah but you're learning so much man you know and and this will give you

[00:59:00] the ability to replicate it once you get it you know if I were you Frank once you get it

[00:59:06] established and that kind of stuff I would definitely look to uh I'd talk to Rick Austin

[00:59:12] and see if I could do a talk every year at Prepper Camp about how to build a survival

[00:59:17] community from the ground up you know what I mean because you've got a lot of vital information

[00:59:24] now and you know you can use that also as a means of putting Fortitude Ranch New York out

[00:59:30] there in front of all the Prepper campers absolutely that'd be great um oh wow there's

[00:59:36] something on tip my tongue and it's put my mind down oh in terms of pulling out all that

[00:59:41] concrete and putting plumbing in when we built our house the dome that we live in we did that

[00:59:46] we while we didn't do we hired a plumber but we saw how we my wife and I put all the

[00:59:51] insulation down we put the plastic down and then the plumbing had to be put in we did a

[00:59:56] we did a lot of the work here ourselves so it's not our what you call it's not our first

[01:00:01] rodeo it's although after building this house it was a lot of work and uh I'm looking

[01:00:09] forward to having more help with the barn to do that work so it's going to be uh it's going

[01:00:15] to be a ride it's going to be an adventure that ought to be a consideration for those folks who

[01:00:20] are getting in at the budget level that's that's what I'm offering people some people

[01:00:26] if they live in the area if they live close and they're willing to put in a few hours

[01:00:30] they can get discount on their memberships yeah that's a good idea somebody uh there's

[01:00:35] I have an electrician that I'm talking to uh it's funny I thought there was a lumberjack but

[01:00:41] he actually works for uh his family owns a lumber basically a lumberjack sales company they sell

[01:00:47] the equipment for lumberjacks and for timber harvesting and some of that equipment might come

[01:00:54] in useful as well oh I'm sure of it man if you're dealing with woods if you're dealing

[01:00:59] with trees the lumber folk are going to be in definitely a valuable asset for sure

[01:01:05] yeah you know you might wind up with a you might wind up with a little

[01:01:09] off-grid sawmill on the property one day who knows I've looked at sawmills for over a

[01:01:14] decade now and I go back and forth with the cost about a year ago I had a DEC person come

[01:01:22] here an environment an environmental conservation and we walked a good portion of the property

[01:01:29] and these um well 100 years ago now these were all open fields and they weren't planted they

[01:01:37] were just open these are all pioneer trees so whatever blew onto the land grew and we walked

[01:01:44] and there's a lot of low quality trees here and I mean the highest I would say all the fruit

[01:01:51] and nut trees that I've planted are probably worth more than all the lumber on this land

[01:01:54] oh wow so oh speaking of which I've got five or four peach trees in the bed of my truck

[01:02:00] I've got a plant today that's the spirit yeah food food is critical I mean it's great to have

[01:02:07] stored food but the stored food is uh what do you call it self-sufficiency you can rely on

[01:02:13] you can you can live on it till it runs out well I think that is the only I think from what

[01:02:19] I know and I've never been but what I know about um the West Virginia location if there

[01:02:26] is an Achilles heel that's it it's it's the replaceable food you know it's the

[01:02:32] it's the sustainable food sources right it's because the replacement ends the moment the

[01:02:40] collapse begins so if you're reliant totally on food sources that are stored then yeah there's

[01:02:48] you know clocks ticking but if you can get those perennial food producers in the ground you get those

[01:02:54] fruit trees those nut trees get those quails and those chickens and those rabbits man whoof

[01:03:00] you can do some stuff especially because you have people you know you with probably you could

[01:03:04] probably produce even more food with more people um than you ever have by yourself because

[01:03:11] you'll have the hands to do the things absolutely details you know the the uh pruning

[01:03:16] of trees and all that kind of stuff really get into it but um right yeah you gotta have

[01:03:21] hands can only do yeah my wife and I working together we can get some things done but we

[01:03:26] can't get everything done we've got about 50 chickens outside I we had four turkey hens sitting

[01:03:33] on eggs for about three weeks and none of them were hatching we actually incubated eggs as

[01:03:40] well and out of 34 eggs only one turkey hatched oh it was I mean my wife usually has a not really

[01:03:48] a green thumb but she's she's definitely a mother hen she out of like 50 eggs that she's

[01:03:53] incubated over the past several years out of 50 she's probably hatched 40 of them or 45

[01:03:58] she's amazing and this time it didn't work out I think because I started up the incubation

[01:04:03] so but the hens that were sitting on eggs all several of the eggs turned out bad so to

[01:04:08] be safe we just got rid of all the eggs and put a bunch of I went to tractor supply bought a bunch

[01:04:13] of turkey poults threw them underneath and then next morning all the hens are like oh look I'm a

[01:04:18] mother I'm a mother and unfortunately we've got a predator on site and uh we've lost half well

[01:04:26] we lost four of those turkeys yeah and it's frustrating because they're not cheap yeah that

[01:04:32] we do have predators are a thing man but again then you go back to that concept of people

[01:04:36] and now you got somebody who can you know be around the hen area whatever you guys got the

[01:04:42] hens in the pens in the fields and keep an eye out for those predators you know the more people

[01:04:46] make a huge difference on predation so absolutely it's to that yeah there's um some people talk

[01:04:53] about how children what can children do in a situation like this well children are fantastic

[01:04:58] with animals they can keep an eye on all the animals and it's simple to say oh this this

[01:05:02] happened or this happened oh yeah all you need is a human around you know like you like a nine

[01:05:07] year old a nine-year-old there's no fox that's gonna be like I'm gonna hop that fence and eat

[01:05:13] that chicken with that human standing right there you know it just won't happen they'll still

[01:05:17] wait no but now they'll they'll look for animals on the fringe and it's up to the

[01:05:24] children or the guard to make sure that that anything that can be predated on is predated

[01:05:31] that there that there's more towards the center of the flock so yeah yeah that's a good call

[01:05:38] but yeah so fortitude ranch.com is where people should go right frank yes

[01:05:46] and they can go by location or actually go to the membership page is where you go

[01:05:53] yes membership most of the information is there if there's anything specific for 42

[01:05:58] ranch new york my specific email is fortitude ranch ny at proton dot me so

[01:06:08] can you do that one more time fortitude yes fortitude ranch ny at proton dot me

[01:06:17] okay right on um did we leave anything out anything you want to say before we call it

[01:06:23] on this one we'll definitely have you back on we want i would i want to hear more about

[01:06:26] the progress once you keep going and keep growing well challenges right now funding we are looking

[01:06:32] for independent investors and we have we've had a couple investors already and we tell them it'll

[01:06:39] probably be a few years because every cent that comes into fortitude ranch is going into building

[01:06:44] and some most of the things we can do ourselves but having building in new york as

[01:06:50] long as you build as your primary residence you can do all the work yourself the barn is kind

[01:06:55] of a question it's still a we consider a physical barn animal housing so right now all the work we

[01:07:03] do is is upgrading a barn once we start putting plumbing electrical upgrades in then we have to

[01:07:09] apply for permits so with permits we need uh we need actual physical electricians plumbers

[01:07:16] things like that so if there are anybody any skilled people in our area within an hour the

[01:07:21] town the closest town is stanford new york that's uh always from us but that's the closest town

[01:07:28] and if anyone is in with within i see the sound of my voice but i guess we're

[01:07:33] nationwide and worldwide so i guess ellen in australia won't be coming to the property anytime

[01:07:38] soon but uh anyone anyone closer than that you're more than welcome to contact me

[01:07:46] and uh let me give out my phone number too just just so people have that you want to give out

[01:07:53] your personal phone number well fortitude ranch phone number okay but uh yes if they if people

[01:08:00] call it they'll they'll have a reason to call so that's 585-797-7019 again that's 585-797-7019

[01:08:16] and i've heard others give out the phone numbers in the past and i thought the exact same thing oh

[01:08:20] everybody's going to be calling and it's amazing how few people actually call those numbers

[01:08:25] unless they unless they have a real reason to call or text they can text as well so but uh

[01:08:32] give frank a call folks and uh frank i appreciate you man you've been a long

[01:08:37] timer here at pbn and you know your support has gone a long way to help us become what

[01:08:43] we've become and and now it's our time to make sure we can get the new york fortitude ranch up

[01:08:49] to its full potential thank you james i appreciate that and i appreciate your time

[01:08:56] and proper broadcasting network and uh dave jones special shout out to dave because he's

[01:09:01] the one who introduced fortitude ranch to me there you go the nbc guy all right james thank

[01:09:08] you very much no problem guys you're in good hands in fortitude ranch new york trust me on that one

[01:09:15] frank's been been with us a long time and i spent a good amount of time with him at a

[01:09:20] prepper camp this year and you know he comes with he comes with a lot of experience from

[01:09:26] the self-reliance and independence standpoint of a faith-based man and father husband you know

[01:09:35] a lot of this fortitude ranch stuff and the investment of money i know you guys are sitting

[01:09:41] there thinking well i get i'm investing in a room but i'm also investing in a person

[01:09:45] so i'm glad we could have frank out to talk to you all and get to know him a little bit

[01:09:50] go out and visit the location if you're close you know it's uh it's a viable option for

[01:09:55] millions of people in the area all right pbn family i appreciate you guys and uh

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