T-Bone’s Place, LLC
An Un-Modern Farmstead
Build it BOLD—from rabbit watering system hacks to greenhouse gold. Farmstead and homestead systems built on a budget, with ease of use and longevity in mind. Follow along as we show our wins, losses, and lessons learned along the road to sustainable living!
Welcome to T‑Bone’s Place ~
...our un-modern farmstead tucked into the quiet pines of East Texas. We’re building a life that’s steady, simple, and rooted in the work of our own hands. Around here, that looks like raising rabbits, building living soil, growing food in the greenhouse, creating seasonal starter buckets, exploring local East Texas gems, and learning as we go. No rush. No noise. Just practical homestead systems built on a budget, one useful project at a time.
A New Focus for
T-Bone’s Place 🫶
T-Bone’s Place is making a change.
Over the next week or so, we will be removing Amazon Associates affiliate links from our website and from our social media accounts.
This is not because we suddenly stopped shopping at Amazon. We haven’t. If we bought something there and think it is worth telling you about, we will still tell you where we found it.
What we are changing is the selling.
Somewhere along the way, we realized we had started spending an awful lot of time and energy jumping through somebody else’s hoops.
Use this link. Post it this way. Meet this requirement. Generate these sales. Follow these rules. Keep feeding the machine and maybe, eventually, earn a small percentage of somebody else’s pie.
And that is almost exactly what we built T-Bone’s Place to get away from.
T-Bone retired after a lifetime of working a J.O.B. He did not retire so we could turn around and give him another one working for the M.A.N., only this time the boss is an algorithm and a corporate affiliate program.
And I wrote the Sonic Identity Method around a very similar idea: we should not have to perform for an algorithm to earn the right to reach people.
Yet there we were doing exactly that.
The more we looked at it, the more obvious the answer became.
We have a finite amount of time, energy, and creativity, and we would rather spend it building the things that actually belong to us. Building the things that bring us happiness and a sense of accomplishment.
There is a Tool Shed being built around here, and we have exciting plans we can’t wait to share with all of you. 🤭🫶
There are gardens to grow, projects to tackle, things to cook, preserve, repair, test, research, photograph, and write about.
There are East Texas stories still waiting to be uncovered. There are stories in Southeastern Oklahoma we want to share with you, as well.
And there is an entire little world called Thistlewyn’s Realm that deserves the time and attention to grow into something much bigger, including, we hope, a book.
So instead of spending that energy chasing 3 to 5 percent of somebody else’s pie, we have decided we would rather bake our own.
That means T-Bone’s Place is going back to something much simpler.
When we share something on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, or anywhere else, we want the reason to be because we think it is interesting, useful, funny, meaningful, or worth sharing with you.
When we send you somewhere, we want that destination to be T-Bone’s Place.
Not because we are trying to sell you something when you get here.
Because this is our home on the inter-webs.
This is where the whole story lives.
We will still talk about the tools and products we genuinely use. If T-Bone likes a chainsaw, we will tell you, and we will tell you where we got it from. If something works beautifully in the kitchen, greenhouse, garden, or Tool Shed, we will say so. If we bought it from Amazon, McCoy’s, a local store, an estate sale, or somebody’s cousin down the road, we have no problem telling you that either.
The difference is that there no longer needs to be a commission attached to the conversation.
We also are not abandoning every business relationship or partnership. Direct relationships with companies that genuinely fit T-Bone’s Place may still make sense for us. We will continue to be transparent about those when they occur.
This decision is specifically about Amazon Associates and about where we choose to put our energy. At this juncture in our lives, we have days when we are operating on tomorrow’s spoons, so it is important for us to choose our battles and projects a little more wisely. 🥴
You may notice some old posts changing or disappearing while we clean things up. Some social media posts can simply be edited. Others cannot, and some older videos may need to be removed, made private, or eventually reposted without the Amazon links.
That cleanup will take us a little time, but the decision itself is made.
We want to spend less time selling.
We want to spend more time building.
More stories.
More research.
More projects.
More T-Bone.
More Thistlewyn.
More fun.
More of the strange, wonderful, useful, occasionally silly things that made us want to create T-Bone’s Place in the first place.
And if something we share makes you curious?
Come to the website.
Pull up a chair.
Read the whole story. Ask us questions. Join the conversation in the comments on Disqus.
That is where we would rather meet you.
Thanks for understanding and being patient while we work through these changes. We appreciate each and every one of you. 🫶
Start a Sustainable Homestead on a Budget
Starting a sustainable homestead on a budget does not have to mean buying land, building a barn, or doing everything at once.
At T-Bone’s Place, we start with practical systems that use what we already have. Rabbits help us build living soil. Scraps, bedding, hay, feed waste, and Bunny BBs become compost. Repurposed materials become racks, garden supports, greenhouse fixes, and working farmstead tools.
A budget homestead starts small. One bucket. One rabbit system. One compost pile. One useful repair. One food-growing project that teaches you something before you spend more money.
Our approach is simple: build slowly, reuse what you can, grow what feeds you, and let each system support the next one.
Small-Space Real Food Production
At T-Bone’s Place, small-space real food production looks like rabbits feeding the soil, greenhouse containers growing useful food, Bountiful Buckets™ helping folks start where they are, and simple systems that make a small property more productive over time.
We are not trying to make everything fancy or perfect. We are learning how to make real food, real soil, and real farmstead systems work in the space we have.
Our Approach
We didn’t set out to build a farmstead, we just started fixing what broke, growing what fed us, and inventing what didn’t exist yet. From rabbit watering rigs slapped together with spare parts, to greenhouse wins that earned one shovel at a time, we’re turning scraps into systems and chores into chapters.
We make living soil from bunny BBs and forgotten greenhouse corners, most often finding DIY comfort where grit meets grace ~ that’s T-Bone’s Place.
~ Jax Tress
Our process is simple and thoughtful.
Come on into the farm and see what we’re about. We share blogs, vlogs, and honest reviews of places we’ve been and things we’ve used ~ some we love, and some… not so much. We’re straight shooters around here ~ the only fluff flying is bunny fluff!
We’re honest about our own follies and flops too (and yes, we’ve had plenty 🥴😊). But we’ve learned from them, and we like sharing what we’ve picked up along the way ~ maybe it helps you dodge a bumpity‑boop or two. And hey, we’d love to hear your wins too 🫶
Questions, garden wins, rabbit notes, and small-farm lessons are welcome in The Root Cellar comments.
SIM™ | Sonic Identity Method
Click on images to enlarge for details
You are invited. SIM was born from a quiet place on this land and from the desire to live with more intention and less noise. If you feel that same tug toward a steadier way of being, come join us.
The Method is one more step toward sustainability for the entrepreneurs and trailblazers who are shattering molds and breaking rules every day to build their own versions of success.
Meet the Crew
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The Labor Camp
⭐ T-Bone
T-Bone is the steady half of this place. He keeps the work grounded, the systems running, and the day‑to‑day moving in the right direction. He sees the straight lines, the structure, and the things that need doing, and he handles them with a calm that keeps the whole farmstead steady.
He’s hands‑on with the land, the animals, the repairs, the planning, and the quiet work that never shows up on camera but makes everything possible. T-Bone brings the kind of steady presence a place like this needs to breathe.
⭐ Jax
Jax is the spark that brings the other half of the work to life. She sees the layers, the possibilities, and the things that want to become something more. She handles the writing, the design, the planning, the breeding records, the systems, and the storytelling that ties the whole farmstead together.
She’s the one who notices the small shifts, the patterns, the timing, and the rhythm of the place. Jax brings the vision that turns the everyday work into something whole and intentional.
⭐ Together
They see the same vision from two different angles, and when they put their eyes together, the whole picture comes into focus. Dimensional. Whole. Alive. T‑Bone’s Place stands because both halves are the same heart beating towards the same goals, hand in hand.
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The Stars of the Farmstead
The ‘Bits
The Bits are the workhorses of our farmstead. We have been working with a cross of Tamuk and Californian genetics, refining our line for the last three years with intention. They show up in our videos because they are part of our everyday lives.
Patches is our headliner. She is a Tamuk Doe with the kind of temperament and production capability we were looking to add to our program. She brings heat tolerance and disease resilience to the line. She gave us her first litter of ten big, strong kits this spring that grew out exactly as predicted, setting the tone for what we expect from this line moving forward.
Gloria was one of Patches’ daughters from that spring litter. Her conformation was so impressive we added her to the breeding program. She has a shy temperament, but she carries the traits we want to keep moving forward. Gloria is half Tamuk and half Californian, and she is the spark where the two worlds meet.
Arnold rounds out our Bunny Barn. He is our young full blood Californian buck, still growing into himself. He brings the solidity and commercial structure we want to blend into the line. He is the anchor that ties the program together.
Together, these three lines create the backbone of our rabbit program. Patches brings the heat tolerance and disease resilience of the Tamuk line; Arnold brings the commercial structure and dependable growth of the Californian line. Gloria is the meeting point of the two, carrying the balance we want to keep moving forward. The three of them form a line built for real world performance, steady production, and long-term strength on a working farmstead.