HAPPY 2014!
We took our biggest leap in 2013 — selling our home and giving away all of our possessions to document amazing farm and energy innovators, culinary pioneers and off-gridders across the continent, while searching for our own piece of land in our converted bus, A Little Further (“ALFie”).
At the beginning of 2013 we took a page from Sandor Katz when deciding on our New Year’s resolution: “To continue our own revolution daily as we seek to embody and manifest the ideals that we hold!” — A resolution we kept and continue to live by.
In six months and nearly 16,000 miles, we have gone from 104 degree heat to 15 degrees below freezing. From sun-drenched beaches to tornado watches. From a food desert to the literal desert; we’ve traveled off-the-grid, under the radar, over the river and through the woods, from the edge of bucolica to the center of New York City. Coast-to-coast our mission, moods, relationship, and health have followed the hills and valleys of our journey…
On our Free Range Quest (so far) we have learned to make wine, cheese, olive oil, and moonshine; to milk a cow and cure a pig; to evaluate, inoculate, impregnate, and butcher any animal; to forage for food and medicine, to keep our gardens and bodies warm in inclement weather, to rotate crops and create a permaculture system, to test and analyze soil and to drive a tractor. We’ve turned a short bus into a cabin on wheels that has come to feel like “home” to us. We’ve learned to get around some really stupid rules, restrictions, and government regulations. We’ve learned about amazing plants and crops we never knew existed before and that we now want to share with the world; we learned to believe in ourselves more and to take care of each other better. We have survived and discovered a new way of life for ourselves that we never would have conceived of at the onset of this odyssey.
In 2014, we continue our Free Range Quest. It feels fitting to paraphrase Winston Churchill now, as we have only reached the “end of the beginning.”
Here are some of our most popular posts of 2013 — as we balanced pioneer journalism with survival in the wilderness and on the road.
The Myth of the Vacation – Why spend most of your life plotting to get away from it?
Read my Letter of Resignation to the Corporate Media – Also known as the ‘Burn the ships’ letter, we are now officially freelance
Still Illegal: Confessions of a Moonshiner – The real Mountain Dew from the Appalachians
The Toilet That Will Change the World – Electro flush is our biddy on the bus
Sandor Katz Visits Free Range Quest – The famous author-Kraut master came over to talk fermentation
SLIDESHOW: A Little Further bus conversion – Photos before we set sail
Stone Camp – This visionary has been off the grid for decades in the mountains of PA.
The Mother Earth News Fair – Our first trip to this pilgrimage for the Do-It-Yourselfers
Rollingstone Chevre – Idaho’s first licensed, and multi award-winning goat cheese farm
Daily Organics – An L.A. lady who upended her life to bring real food to the city
Where is Von Kroug Farms? – Help us find the landing for our all-life-farm!
Dirty Life at Essex Farms – A visit with New York’s famous author-farmers Mark and Kristen Kimball
Exuberance Farms Mini Cows – This couple breeds the finest little bovines in Pennsylvania Below is a slideshow of some of our favorite moments so far —> Thank YOU for coming with us on this journey!
-Dave & Kristina-
Free Range Quest 
I really enjoyed your pictures, made my day:)
Aww! Thank you for checking it out! Xo