
King of the Marsh
@KingVelesI • 38,281 subscribers
Cattle and sheep herder. Natural bodybuilder. I post while I herd my livestock. Married to @QueenMokoshI.
Videos

HOW TO GET RICH BY HERDING LIVESTOCK: 1. Move to a remote area with lots of free pasture. 2. Buy some cattle, sheep, and/or goats of an old and hardy breed. 3. Take your herd on grazing walks every day, feeding them at zero cost. 4. Watch your herd multiply and grow bigger year after year. The bigger it is, the faster it grows. Zero overheads. Everything you produce is pure profit. Keep it up until you've amassed a gigantic herd, and then grow it some more. The crucial part is selecting breeds that are suited to this kind of management. Breeds that have fantastic health and constitution; that require no shelter and live under the open sky all year long; that can graze through thick snow in the winter; and that have no need for vets, medications, or supplements of any kind. Check out the clip: This Highland bull calf was born in the middle of the grazing walk, and was ready to follow his herd home (a trip of several kilometers) a mere TWO HOURS after being born. Seriously, the little dude was already running, jumping, and climbing steep inclines. Crazy! 😄
King of the Marsh118,688 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

"Bodybuilding doesn't build functional strength!" Sorry, "functional strength" bros, but that silly cope of yours doesn't hold up in the real world. There is no functional and non-functional strength — strength is, by definition, functional, and the strength developed through dedicated bodybuilding training can be applied to any strenuous task. Physiologically, the only way to significantly increase a muscle's strength is to make it bigger. Especially when natural lifters are concerned, hypertrophy IS strength.
King of the Marsh211,145 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

What separates the truly disciplined from everyone else? Everybody can adhere to a discipline while everything's fine and dandy, and nothing unpredictable happens. But, a truly disciplined person knows that the real test of discipline is sticking to it when everything goes to hell. Your most important workout will be the one you improvise at home when the gym was unexpectedly closed; Your most important practice session will be the one you put in when you're stressed and exhausted because everything went wrong at work; Your most important day of working on your business will be the one when you show up in spite of just having had your heart broken. "But you have to be flexible!" Deciding you'll go to the gym later than usual because you had to work overtime is being flexible. Deciding you'll skip the gym altogether because you're "too tired" is not flexibility — it's laziness. Disciplined people understand that discipline is non-negotiable. They understand the value of time, of consistency, of momentum, and that it's far easier to just keep the ball rolling rather than letting it stop and then having to get it rolling again, over and over. Disciplined people DON'T BREAK THE CHAIN.
King of the Marsh138,085 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

Day 293 of working out every day and eating only one meal a day. Many people here asked me if I get tired, and yeah, I most definitely do. Since starting this routine, I increased my training volume from 12 daily sets to 31. Just as my body gets used to a certain amount of work, and my fatigue starts to drop off, I increase the volume again, always keeping myself at a level I would describe as "tolerably tired". Many folks will tell you this doesn't work, and that you'll "hit a wall" by training like this, but my tape measure disagrees. The more work I force onto my muscles, the faster they grow, exactly as you'd expect if you'd never had an "expert" tell you about "overtraining". You even learn to like the persistent weariness. It's calming, and makes you feel all peaceful and zen. Much like low-frequency lifters enjoy the feeling of sore muscles, you come to appreciate that slight feeling of "lead" in your body. It tells you you're pushing yourself just enough. By now, the workouts have, of course, lost all novelty. There's little to no excitement involved, no psyching up, no making a big deal out of it. It's just a chore I do twice a day, much like feeding my calves (as in my young cattle, not my lower legs 😄). It's just work. So yeah, I am tired, and it's honestly not that bad. As I see it, being tired from working on your dreams is a privilege. "Do hard things, and be grateful that you can."
King of the Marsh70,804 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

I was forced to sell my home gym when we moved to this farm. There was just no room for it in the tiny cabin. And yet, I've built a much better physique now, by lifting logs, rocks, farm tools, and family members, than I ever did back when I was training with top-of-the-line equipment. Your muscles don't care what you use to overload them. All they care about is volume, intensity, and CONSISTENCY.
King of the Marsh45,867 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE HERD Back when we moved here, and started grazing our small herd over the surrounding area, our farm was, well, not a farm at all yet — it was nothing but a sea of thorny brush, completely unfenced, and lacking any infrastructure except the cabin we live in. As there was so much work to do on the farm to get it off the ground, taking the herd on grazing walks felt like nothing but a chore keeping us from more pressing work. Now, years later, I realize how misguided that view was. The herd is the foundation of the traditional farm. Not the farmhouse, not all the other infrastructure, not even the land itself — the herd. Provided you have enough free pasture nearby, you can build a huge herd while owning little land (pretty much what we're doing here), but what use are thousands of hectares of pasture without a herd? The herd feeds both you and your other animals, it gives fertility to your fields, gardens, and orchards with its manure, and it makes you money as well — it is the bedrock upon which the whole system is built. "But what's the big deal? Isn't herding just standing around livestock as they graze?" Think again. Put a herd in the care of an inexperienced or lazy herder for a few days. Then, take note of the amount of milk you're getting from it. Next, put the herd in the hands of a skilled, hard-working herder and watch what happens to the milk output in just a few days — the difference will be enormous. Naturally, all the other, less immediately visible, aspects of a herd's performance will be equally dramatically affected by the better management. The females will exhibit higher fertility rates; their young will be born strong and healthy, and have high survival rates; they'll grow fast, reaching slaughter weights quickly, and mature and produce their own offspring sooner, accelerating the growth of the herd; and when an epidemic strikes, the weak herd managed by the bad shepherd will end up decimated, while the good shepherd's strong, healthy herd will suffer minimal losses. A good herder can grow his herd at an exponential rate. A bad one will struggle to keep his from shrinking. Therefore, never regret the time you spend grazing your herd. Just like a great physique is built one workout at a time, a great herd is built by consistent and diligent herding, twice a day, every day, rain or shine. Each grazing walk compounds, and delivers a greater return the longer you do it, and the more your herd grows. And now, back to building the dream — one grazing walk at a time. :)
King of the Marsh43,331 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

Our new Podolian calves are finally here! Seven heifer calves and a bull calf, one of them purchased with the money donated by the wonderful people of X. Thank you, folks! Your generosity kept one of these beauties out of the slaughterhouse and brought her here, where she'll help us revitalize this beautiful and critically endangered ancient breed. With this addition, our cattle herd is now at nineteen head, and I can't wait for the new arrivals to join the others on our daily grazing walks. However, we must be patient with that — these calves had minimal human contact until now, and are still very scared of us. I really dislike keeping animals tied down, but that's how it'll have to be for a little while, until they get accustomed to my touch and become easier to work with. After we untie them, they'll still stay in the corral for a month or two, before finally joining the herd on grazing walks. We even bought hay (which is not something we normally do) to facilitate this slow acclimation. Last year, when we bought our first three Podolian calves, we attempted to rush this process, and ended up narrowly preventing a disastrous escape, so no more fooling around — this time we're following the old-timers' advice to the letter. I think a little celebration is in order now. The more hectic part of the job is behind us, and we've made a big step towards our ultimate goal — converting this whole area into a sanctuary for this amazing and unjustly neglected ancestral breed.
King of the Marsh29,086 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

Here's how you get a big chest without a gym, or even weights — decline pushups with my wife riding on my back. Once I get three sets of twelve clean reps like this, I'll have her put on a backpack with a big rock in it to increase the load further. With enough lifting experience, you can easily find ways to efficiently overload any muscle without the need for specialized equipment, which is especially handy when you live in a tiny cabin, and don't have the space for a home gym.
King of the Marsh28,904 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

This January 1st will be the last "Day 1" of your life. It will be the day you finally stopped betraying yourself. The day you started honoring the promises you've made to yourself. The day you decided to make discipline your lifestyle. Your philosophy. Your RELIGION. January 1st, 2026 will be the day you left your weakness behind and ASCENDED. Are you with me?
King of the Marsh24,557 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

It all started with a single calf in 2022. Back then, we thought we would likely never have more than three cows. Now, our herd is up to nineteen head and we know this is just the beginning. Just three years ago, we were dreaming about a small, self-sufficient homestead. Now, we are dreaming about hundreds of hectares and massive herds of cattle and sheep. When you find your place in the world, your dreams have a way of growing.
King of the Marsh17,852 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten

I thought this post wasn't going to get much attention, but all the small guys coping in the replies gave it quite a bit of traffic. As expected, the strength literacy of the average X user is abysmal — he doesn't even know what bodybuilding IS, or what bodybuilding training looks like, but he definitely knows: 1. That he hates it. 2. That it's deeply dysfunctional. 3. That it doesn't result in "real world strength". 4. That it doesn't build discipline. 5. That it's spiritually connected to transgenderism. Meanwhile, this was my 238th straight day of doing dysfunctional bodybuilding workouts. :)
King of the Marsh23,551 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

For some reason, many folks here seem convinced that we are rich people putting on a show, so we thought we'd give you a tour of our house. (Sound on.) :) Yes, that's all of it. Four walls and a roof. No plumbing, no wiring. When we moved here, during the winter of 2022, it didn't even have a stove, or a chimney, let alone all this nice furniture. We kept warm by working all day long, and snuggling under multiple heavy blankets during the night. What I'm getting at is: If you really want to live the self-sufficient homesteader lifestyle, you'll likely have to reconsider what the "bare minimum" is. Your priorities will change a lot. You'll quickly realize that building another three hundred meters of fencing, buying an additional cow, or clearing one more hectare of pasture will do much, much more to improve your quality of life than any indoor comforts ever could. Therefore, you'll invest 95% of your time, energy, and money into your farm, while your dwelling will have to make do with the rest. You'll also realize that many "essentials" aren't at all essential to someone living as you do, and you'll stop caring about them. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Bottom line: The OUTSIDE - your pastures, fields, and gardens - are the foundation of your homestead. Once that foundation is truly solid, you can think about building a big, beautiful house on top of it. In the meantime, having an affinity for asceticism will go a long way.
King of the Marsh56,429 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Nationalism is getting huge in my country. Croatian patriotic rock singer Marko Perković Thompson has shattered the world record for the largest ticketed concert in history by selling more than 500,000 tickets for his upcoming concert at Zagreb's Hippodrome. This number more than doubles the previous record (225,173 tickets by Italian musician Vasco Rossi), and, even more remarkably, Thompson managed to pull this off in a small country of only 3.8 million. The concert is officially sold out, as the venue cannot host more people, and further dates have been arranged to cope with the still high demand for tickets. Clearly, this event is just one manifestation of the broad cultural shift that is happening all across Europe and most of the Western world. After decades of being denounced as extremism, national and ethnic pride are back in style in a big way. P.S. ‘Thompson’ is not the singer's surname, but rather a nickname he earned by wielding a Thompson submachine gun (a.k.a. ‘Tommy gun’) while serving as a soldier in Croatia's Homeland War.
King of the Marsh32,194 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

There are no quick fixes or simple hacks for becoming strong, especially when you do it the healthy, natural way, and whoever's telling you otherwise is likely trying to sell you something. Developing a strong and lean body is all about CONSISTENT EFFORT. It's about enduring some hunger and putting the fork down when you feel like eating some more. It's about working out when you're tired and stressed, and lifting is the last thing you want to do. It's about being patient and working for months to see a tiny bit of improvement. It's about accepting that it's hard work, and it's never going to get easier. It's about embracing the suck — and even learning to love it. Nothing's standing in your way. There's nothing you need to buy — no specialized equipment, no fancy foods, no expensive supplements — FITNESS IS FREE! All you need to do to achieve the body of your dreams is to embrace consistent, self-imposed hardship. Learn to love the suck — and you'll be unstoppable.
King of the Marsh18,017 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

"But homesteading costs a ton of money!" Depends on what kind of homesteading you're talking about. If you're talking about a hobby farm that you finance with your regular job that leaves you next to no time to actually homestead, forcing you to throw money at every problem, then yeah — that kind of homesteading is indeed expensive (but can certainly be very rewarding nonetheless, for those who can afford it). If, on the other hand, you're talking about hardcore, primitive homesteading on raw, undeveloped land, where you quit your job and commit to years of bare-bones living, constant physical work, skill acquisition, and doing everything from scratch while you wait for your livestock to multiply, your trees to grow, and your pastures to develop, then no — that kind of homesteading is among the cheapest lifestyles available to modern humans. As a homesteader, you're in full control of your setup, so choose the model that fits your personality, physical capacity, and budget. Bonus tip: Whenever possible, schedule any projects that require a lot of bark peeling for early and mid spring — that's when the sap flows between the bark and the trunk, making it very easy to cleanly peel the bark off. It'll save you A LOT of time.
King of the Marsh23,039 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

They don't get enough physical work. Post-industrial society has normalized this lifestyle where people — especially women — never experience a serious degree of physical strain, and this will mess most of them up psychologically, as it's not how humans evolved to function. Women, like men, are supposed to go through these cycles of experiencing physical stress and fatigue, followed by the rewarding sensation of a completed task, and well-earned rest. When you never get the pain, you never get the pleasure, and you're stuck in this gray limbo of always being half-tired. It's a lot like how the narrator in 'Fight Club' describes insomnia: "Never truly asleep and never truly awake." Men experience this problem less often because they're more likely to work physical jobs, play sports, and work out. At the same time, women are taught that physical tasks that have been done by them since prehistoric times are somehow "unfeminine" now. In gyms, they're encouraged to lift those little pink excuses for dumbbells that are lighter than their water bottles, and don't accomplish anything but fool them into thinking they're working out. Then you have all the trads idealizing the 1950s housewife lifestyle while conveniently forgetting how hugely popular antidepressants and tranquilizers were among those women. It's time to stop clinging to this obviously broken ideal. There's no point in running away from pain and effort — they're an inescapable fact of life. All the healthy physical strain you've managed to dodge today will just circle back to haunt you as unhealthy mental strain tomorrow, robbing you of your peace and happiness. If you're a woman and want to be as healthy and happy as you can, you have to get rid of this notion that there's something unfeminine about hard physical work. You have to EMBRACE EFFORT. You have to feel your muscles strain, your heart race, and your chest heave, and you have to feel those things regularly. Life is hard, and hard is good. Earn your rest. P.S. If you recognize the song she's chopping wood to, you're a badass! :)
King of the Marsh19,832 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
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