Crypto-permie homesteaders on Nat Geo TV show "Live Free Or Die"

I used to eat insects before I went vegan.

I recently found their youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyPLCKVHX9HBcOLRQe72FAg/videos , so from the horses mouth a message about unreality TV

@Dan Boone

Why did you describe the show as "crypto" permie  homesteaders?  Just thinking about this now and wondering why you used the word "crypto."

Dan Boone wrote:

There's a new-to-me (just started its second season) show on the National Geographic Channel called Live Free Or Die.  It has my attention because, without using the word "permaculture", it features a couple who are building a permaculture homestead on 1.5 acres in South Carolina.  The episode guide that I first noticed mentioned making sycamore syrup, and in the two episodes I've viewed so far, Tony And Amelia have built a temporary rocket stove for sugaring, made their syrup, and have put the finishing touches on a small rocket mass heater in their cabin (including going under the cabin to shore it up with a telephone pole after the floor began to sag).  What's more, Tony has talked about his ambition to grow a food forest.  I can't believe they haven't used the word permaculture to the producers -- they must have -- but at least so far, I haven't seen it.

Fair warning, though, there are at least three other people featured on the show -- an aging Georgia trapper and swamp rat, a Colorado mountain-man primitive blacksmith who is the world's worst muleskinner, and a dude called "Thorn" who showed us how to build a coracle (skin boat) and then (presumably to please the producers) paddled it so far down a rapidly-flowing river that there's no hope he'll ever get it back upstream again without a pickup truck.  They are all back-to-the-landers of one kind or another, and the show focuses on showing us them practicing skills for homesteading and/or primitive living, but the overall permie interest may be low.   Like most such shows it's fairly foolish, jumps around too much, has heavy-handed narration that tries to inject drama into fundamentally undramatic living, and features people doing stuff that is obviously "showing off for the camera" more than the actual reality of their life.  Some of the editing is implausible, too; there was a storyline about cold baby rabbits wrapped around the mass heater project, and they made it appear that the project went from mixing morter for the bricks in the mass bench all the way through to a fired-up warm room in a single day, even after taking time out to go salvage a telephone pole and shore up their cabin.  

So I'm not really recommending the show, just calling it out because it has people doing permaculture in it, plus a lot of stuff that will be interesting to homesteaders, primitive-living enthusiasts, and back-to-the-landers.