Ep 30: From an LA Cubicle to a North Carolina Homestead w/ Jason Contreras

Episode #30 of The Coop is for anyone standing at the edge of a bigger life … and wondering if they have to leap overnight.

Homestead Living Editor-in-Chief Anna Sakawsky sat down with Jason Contreras (Homestead Living contributor and the voice behind Sow the Land) to talk about the long road from a standard modern life outside Los Angeles to a working homestead in North Carolina.

Jason shares how a Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis at 30 started the questioning … and how the last thing his oncologist said after chemo (“go back to your normal life”) is what made him and his wife refuse to. They didn’t sell everything the next week. They grew one tomato. Then they canned. Then they hosted a food swap. Then they sold the kitchen table. Six years later, they moved.

In this episode, Anna and Jason discuss:

What life looked like before the diagnosis: 17 years at a drafting desk, fashion-industry hours, two cars, four bedrooms they didn’t useHow “go back to your normal life” became the turning pointStarting with one backyard tomato, and why you can’t go back to the store-bought kindHomesteading in the city: raised beds, pickles, tomato sauce, living with one car, and a no-money food swap at the parkWhy the move took six years (2016), not six monthsLearning to process chickens at Primal Pastures before they owned landTrading a day of weeding for a CSA box to learn a new climateTreating 1.5 acres like a college course to find out if they even liked the workYouTube’s first year: about $80, and why the skills came firstWhat he’s most proud of: a family that harvests and cooks together, and a daughter who doesn’t remember the old lifeWhy you have to dare yourself to fail, because the next vision is better than the firstWhether you’re still in a backyard, still in a job you’re questioning, or already on the land and wondering if you started too fast, this conversation is proof that the leap can be slow, deliberate, and still count.