Mark is the creator of the Modern Rural Civilian channel, creating content about his ongoing adventure to design and create his dream "off grid" property and homestead. Many people talk about their desire to "detach" and build their own oasis, but few actually take the required actions. Mark's channel shares the successes and failures quite openly, providing insight in to what the lifestyle actually requires. Modern Rural Civilian: https://youtube.com/@modernruralcivilian?si=YHCCuQXPM0JxhudX Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Fabric: https://www.meetfabric.com/clearedhot
Chapter 1: What does it mean to go off-grid?
Good morning, everybody. Welcome back. Today, days like today, I should say, are the reasons why I like social media and are the reasons why I like doing this podcast. I get to sit down with somebody I never would have been connected with. I was connected to this person via a friend locally over Instagram, switched it to IRL in real life, emailing back and forth. Imagine
wanting to get off the grid. Imagine not, you know, I say that not pejoratively, but you just want to be able to have a piece of land, build your dream property, doing it all with your bare hands, what you can teach yourself and the tools and equipment that you have available, and maybe build into something where you can teach others. That for me is absolutely fascinating. And
He has been able to do that. He has an Instagram page that you have to check out. It is Modern Rural Civilian. You want to talk about somebody documenting the highs and the lows, the trials and tribulations of trying to do exactly what I just described. It's a great follow. It's fascinating to see, I want to say low tech, but I don't want that to come off incorrectly.
It's fascinating to see real world solutions or low tech solutions to modern problems. It doesn't always have to be electronics. It doesn't always have to be something that somebody else solved. One of the things I love about Mark is he just, he shows and documents what it is he's building and how he solves these problems. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before we do that,
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Chapter 2: How did Mark start his homestead journey?
It's unmatched. I mean, and I'm, you know, I, I, I don't take anything from it. I'm just also trying to, um, I'm trying to make this lifestyle accessible to a wider range of people that may not be so easily extreme in what they're willing to give up and or sacrifice. And so I just always enter the conversation with the knowledge that.
not everybody's me when it comes to like, but that, those were my best showers on the property. I mean, those were some of the, the simplest times. Like, I mean, for the longest time, I hadn't thought of this for years, but, um, you know, the, the spring overflow ran into this little, uh, horse trough thing. Well,
Rather than going and buying ice at the closest place that we could haul ice and keep it as long as we could in a nice cooler, that cold water that just comes out of the mountain became our little juice cooler, whatever. We had our cans thrown inside of that in that little water trough. Yeah.
It just the simplest things, but I mean, I'll still remember those memories when I'm on that deathbed that we talked about earlier as probably some of the most pure moments that we've, that we've had.
And if shit does hit the fan, that system is still going to work.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
I don't, I don't, uh, I think I take for granted how many of the fears have been erased from my mentality of what we can put up with and how do we approach this without this and the, the problem solving and challenges that come with this for us buying what I'll say is raw land with, you know, with not with, with nothing there other than just a couple of amenities and working from, from there outward.
Um, It takes a long time. It takes a lot of work. I'm a glutton for punishment because no matter how hard it is and no matter how the time span has grown past our initial hopes that we would be working and building on our forever home at this point... What was your initial timeline you gave yourself? I mean, you know, I think that... Like, have this thing knocked down in six months, no problem.
Yeah, no, no. The land... So we're on a steep slope of a canyon wall, timbered, not a lot of flat land at all with it. And initially, at that time, I guess kind of ties back into the logging stuff, but my dad, one of his earliest woods bosses, became his longtime good friend and was much older than him. But when he passed away, he left my dad a...
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Mark face during the COVID pandemic?
I locked it in, yeah.
You could travel around and that would be a really good name for like a serial killer that travels interstate. Right, right. That's where my head goes. I don't know what that says about me, but that was my first time.
And it all came from the old, you know, the Highwaymen is the band. But it was in alignment with my travels all over the country, rescuing these old airstreams and just the self-guided sort of creative life that I was able to live, living out of the back of my truck. Man, I would take that in a different direction. Yeah, I can see.
I would take pictures of people. From behind, so you can't see their face, and I would describe as the serial killer why I was selecting them as my victim. I liked them. All just throughout. You're liking this, aren't you, Michael? You can do this if you want to. I'm trying to give you content gold here. Thanks for the advice. I love it.
Pictures through grainy windows, like this person I picked because of... True crime is a barrier.
This is what I would... You would find them buried amongst the ferns and moss. We should start a true crime show. Yeah, I feel like you'd probably get a visit from the FBI or somebody associated. I don't doubt it.
But I mean, here's the thing. I didn't say I was going to kill them. I said it would be in the vein of a serial killer and you just wouldn't be able to identify the people. You could take the pictures. This is what appeals to me. These are the thoughts that I'm having onto the next.
Yeah, that's awesome. But I was having a little bit of an identity crisis with trying to... bring this homestead content into, into what I had been trying to frame my, you know, frame my life as prior. So, um, sat down, you know, like, uh, probably winter of 2020, 2022 is maybe when I rebranded and modern rural civilian was, was all encompassing for my, I really wanted to create
a category and a title of people that people could identify to that encompassed all of these passions that I had amassed over my crazy journey. And, and without trying to manage three different YouTube channels that were all very specific to, yeah. And I, I, um, that was the big goal.
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Chapter 4: How did Mark and Heather find their property?
Yes.
I upload this to the internet. We upload it to YouTube. I get very limited parsed data back to me about consumption.
Right.
But I know damn well that there is valuable upstream information. Not that I actually would know what to do with it, but... Oh, I'm the same.
I'm learning. Yeah.
There'd be... The user device type there I'm sure would be their IP address. All of that stuff that I assume they use in package to sell to advertising for them. What they will give me is here's your general locations, download statistics, things like that for when it comes to audio. You're familiar with the viewership stuff on YouTube. You can get...
You can get relatively detailed information, but there has to be a treasure trove upstream of what we see that they are using to make their own money. And it's not an accident that there is a hard break in that information.
No, and meta is even worse. YouTube is one thing, but Instagram and Facebook... I don't think I've ever even really reached anybody more than an automated response when it comes to questions through the Meta platform. So the understanding of this, and I'm grateful for any level of freedom that's come from this, so it's hard to try to be judgmental. Well, you're not being judgmental.
I think it's safe to say, and I know nothing about Meta or the internal workings, I bet you they understand it down to a gnat's ass.
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Chapter 5: What unique solutions did Mark implement in his homestead?
Absolutely.
We use this for free. Sure. somewhere in the small print that I didn't read and I'm not going to. They've done fantastic tests on this where they'll put into small print just to see if people are like, hey, you've signed over the rights to all of your children and all the property.
No, it doesn't stop anybody. The click-through rate is exactly the same.
But we're using their system for free. What they want from us is our attention. Absolutely. And our time. And they sell that, and that's the game. And it becomes tough, especially when, like you said, without consulting the person that is actually – Because it is symbiotic. They're not going to grow their platform without the content that people want to watch. They're rewarding you for that.
They can change the mechanism behind the scenes. It may change your ability to make the content. So there's an inequity there because they can control the platform. But that's kind of the game.
It's just the game that they've created. And we're just a player in the arena. Easy to be frustrated.
The better move is to just continue to move forward, I think, the way that you are. You're going to figure it out.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So that, that just leads me. I just wanted to show the vulnerability of my naiveness through the journey of content creation to tell you that I, I've, I'm not, I don't have a, I don't have it all figured out. I'm absolutely learning as I go. Um, only this, only this year.
Am I really trying to buckle down to, and I say this year, meaning like a couple of days ago, you know, 2025. How's that going for you? Well, it's been awesome. You got a lot under your belt. Yeah. Like five days in a row.
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Chapter 6: What role does social media play in Mark's journey?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you may. Let me ask you this, because we've known each other a couple hours, other than our communication setting this up. You're going to figure this out. I have no doubt that you will get to the end state, and the homestead will be what you want. So here's my question. What do you do then? What? Because I feel like your creative itch is definitely being satiated right now.
Absolutely. But when you're done, I think it might come back.
Yeah. Well, I've had, I've had visions of that because as we've progressed on the property and now I can visually imagine the home being started and completed and built, um, I want, you know, I've always wanted to right now I work in the, in the mud, the gravel, the snow on anything outside in order to stay.
making progress on projects, but, uh, um, I sold a very nice new shop that I had just built, just had built. I was that guy back then. Um, and really didn't get the chance to, you know, to, to even experience the, the blessings of having this heated, you know, well lit, nice, um, space that can take you out of the season that you're in and still allow you to be laboratory. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right.
No, it was awesome. Movie old school. Yeah. Love it. It's your beat laboratory. Don't touch the drum set. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love, I love that shop. Um, but it was only, only just got a little taste of it before we decided let's, let's, let's turn our lives upside down and start this homestead. So, um, I don't think I'll ever run out of, of, you know, eventually I would like to, um,
I'm getting, I'm getting asks constantly about teaching, um, sharing this knowledge base with, with other individuals who are, you know, less, um, earlier in the journey of getting, getting to this place. Um, I'm a little bit. I love people. I joke sometimes that I love people from a distance more than I love the reality of people. I can understand that. Right in my face.
So I know that there's a good... I know I can offer a good value to physically showing people how some of these systems work and showing them even through the remainder of the building of our dreams here on this property. But I'm definitely reserved to the thought of bringing people to the land to be able to- I don't think you need to.
As you're describing this, and again, take 100% of the things I say with a grain of salt because I'm a fucking idiot, all right? And I've also never done anything homesteading. Yeah. You already understand content, short form, and you've already, you said today you have an interest in long form. I do.
You don't need to bring people to your property in the area that we live in where they can connect with your property on a screen size of their choice. Sure. When you finish. You could always choose to build – because I bet the questions come to you in tranches as well, like septic, water, fill in the blank.
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