When a London TV Production Company Called About Our Idaho Homestead

I know. It sounds a little silly when I say it out loud.

But one morning in our first summer on the Filer property, a production company in London — RAW TV, the folks behind the show Gold Rush — called and interviewed our family about potentially being in a short TV series on self-sufficient living.

Apparently the self-sufficient lifestyle was having a moment in the UK. America was catching on too. And somehow, our little homestead in southern Idaho with its 27 chickens, five 4-H pigs, garden plot, and canal had come across their radar.

We did the interview. Camera crew, questions, the whole thing. And whether or not anything came of it on television, what it confirmed for me was something I already knew: the life we were building on those three Idaho acres was genuinely remarkable — not because it was unusual for Magic Valley, but because it was increasingly rare everywhere else.

What We Had Built in Six Months

By the time the RAW TV call came, here's what we had going on the property:

27 chickens — we'd started with 30-something, lost five to Lucky the dog in one regrettable weekend incident that I will not elaborate on further, and were managing the remaining flock with the confidence of people who had been doing this for more than five minutes.

5 pigs — the 4-H project that the girls were raising for the county fair in September. The pigs had names. The kids were attached. The auction was going to be emotional.

A working garden — planted, fenced against rabbits, and producing. Not everything we'd hoped, but real vegetables from real Idaho soil.

A private dirt road — one of the details that the London producers seemed genuinely interested in. My kids rode their bikes on a private dirt road with only one other house on it. Coming from subdivisions in Mesa and Flagstaff, that felt like science fiction.

What Self-Sufficiency Actually Looks Like

Here's what I told the production company, and what I'll tell you:

Self-sufficiency isn't a destination. It's a direction.

We didn't stop going to the grocery store. We didn't produce 100% of our food. But we were moving consistently in the direction of knowing where our food came from, of having real skills, of building a property that produced things.

Southern Idaho is an extraordinary place to move in that direction. The community supports it. The land supports it. The 4-H program, the irrigation system, the agricultural infrastructure that's been in place for over a century — all of it makes the self-sufficient life more accessible here than almost anywhere else in the American West.

The TV people could see it. So could we.

If This Life Is What You're Looking For

I help families find acreage properties in Magic Valley all the time — people who want what we built, who are ready to start their own version of this story.

📞 Dr. Ron Jones | 208-712-8386 — I've lived the homestead life in southern Idaho and I sell the land. Let's find your three acres.

Photo from the Orange Jeep Dad blog — our Filer, Idaho homestead during its first full summer, 2015.

Dr. Ron Jones | Rim & River Real Estate | rimandriver.com | 208-712-8386