We haven’t made an open effort to meet our neighbors, but we have enjoyed every encounter (goats in the street, dogs in the yard, grandkids for a walk). We live at 4886 W Port Au Prince in a home that we rent from owners that have been a part of this community for decades, and this article is the beginning of an effort to introduce ourselves and offer what we have to add to the community and how we plan to highlight life here in Sunburst Farms with others.

I have been a resident of Phoenix since 1972 when my family moved to Phoenix from Central Florida. My mother’s parents moved to Mesa from Iowa in the mid 50’s, so I have family roots in the Valley of the Sun that extend back to before my birth in 1961. My two sisters and I graduated from Moon Valley High School (a nearby rival of your local Greenway High School) so via sports, work and mutual friends, my sisters and I knew proud residents of Sunburst Farms.

Irrigated acres with very large mature trees, horses, goats, cows, sheep, chickens, peacocks, gardens with a rural lifestyle in an urban desert community is certain to stick in the mind of a young man that understands the value of such things.

Our Family is likely a lot like yours.
Donna is from State College, Pennsylvania (she attended Penn State and Beaver Stadium was almost her back yard) and that’s where we met in the early 80’s while I was traveling for business. We would marry a couple of years later and start our family here in Phoenix, Arizona. We immediately had 2 girls and 2 boys and started our first business together.

In 1998, we opened a family pizza restaurant where we worked together as a family for over 5 years while our four children attended Phoenix Christian Jr./Sr. High School from 7th �" 12th grade. Our children now range from 23-27 years of age and have left home, but all reside within 10 miles and visit often with our 4 grandchildren (3 girls/1 boy). We have a Son-in-Law and a Daughter-in-Law that are fully part of our family and are great parents.

Our friends and family love to visit ‘The Farm’ and the experience for our grandchildren (9 months �" 3.5 years) is certain to be life forming.

My journalism years came as a direct result of my advocacy for a voluntary society (libertarianism) for over 20 years. It is this path that has brought us to Sunburst Farms seeking a lifestyle that allows us to be an inspiration to our family, friends and supporters while learning important new skills we think of great value. It is this effort that we wish to share the details of so that you know how important it is to us that you are offered an opportunity to share your experience and knowledge with our readers and listeners.

So you understand the scope of our efforts, I’ll share some details about what we do. www.FreedomsPhoenix.com is the main hub of our activities and advocacy, but it is the radio show www.DeclareYourIndependencewithErnestHancock.com (Main Page link: http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Program-Page.htm?No=0001) that would provide the clearest understanding of what our family does and why, while I interview newsmakers and interesting & informed people from around the world.

For the last 3+ years, Donna and I have been advocating for a more self-sustainable life-style for many reasons and Sunburst Farms provides a unique opportunity to be an excellent example to others that we hope to encourage. And by driving through Sunburst Farms, it is very clear that we are not alone and we hope to network with others that wish to add their knowledge and experience to our publications, and to invite you to visit and share the new knowledge that we are accumulating.

We want to invite you all to a weekend event that we plan to have in late October where we will share our harvests with family, friends and neighbors as well as encourage you to participate in the sharing of what you have to offer.

In addition to the gardening, chickens, and goats that we have already learned a great deal about, we are in the process of creating an Aquaponics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics) system that uses the water from a Tilapia fish pond to feed plants in a soilless environment. This experiment follows the efforts of others that have already proven the technique, but we hope to track the amount of food that can be produced in a small area with the least amount of effort.

During our first summer here in Sunburst Farms we planted a large garden that over produced for our needs, and this prompted our learning canning and preservation for long term food storage. We are hopeful that Aquaponics will provide a continuous supply of fresh food in the form of various vegetables and fish in a sustainable food loop that uses little energy or outside resources. We have been covering the development of this farming technique and hope to prove its viability for families as an alternative to over reliance on industrial food sources.

One main motivation for our effort is that the economics of a young family is such that a stay-at-home parent can care for the children and provide enough healthy food to justify the elimination of a second income. The cost of day care, taxes, groceries, transportation, health concerns etc. have risen to the point that our married children or their spouse are encouraged to stay at home with our grandchildren. It is our hope to encourage that arrangement, and to demonstrate the benefits of growing up with fresh and healthily grown foods. We are certain that our grandchildren will benefit from the first-hand knowledge of where food really comes from and how to provide for themselves.

Donna and I live a very modest and open life and every aspect of our time here has been documented daily, and Sunburst Farms has been positively portrayed the entire time… but who has been paying attention?

“Generation Next” has been our focus. Donna and I have always looked 20+ years into the future. Advocating for a free and prosperous society for our children and grandchildren over the long term has spared us the anxiety of worrying about the daily encroachments on our lives by a plethora of public and private institutions.

Since we seek a cultural shift via rediscovered self-determination and self-reliance, we are not subject to shifts in political winds… buuuut that doesn’t mean that we don’t make use of electoral politics in our efforts to educate.

Many of you may recognize our efforts or even our names, but likely the most notable would be the Ron Paul r3VOLution that started here in Arizona. The LOV3olution logo was created by us during the 2006 election cycle here in Arizona, and would be used a year later by us and our friends to endorse the libertarian philosophy advocated by Dr. Paul. For a fuller understanding of what was really going on and why, you can view the documentary
“For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty” Movie Trailer - http://www.imdb.com/video/withoutabox/vi2108753177/?ref_=tt_ov_vi

This Freedoms Phoenix Digital Magazine is the 25th edition produced by us and we have covered many subjects. Each edition focused primarily on a single theme that is depicted by the cover art for each edition (just as this edition’s cover depicts our efforts here at ‘the farm’). By scanning the editions and the article headlines of past editions, you may find many subjects that are of great interest to you and written by many well known and some not as well known individuals that will provide you with information that you will find very valuable. FreedomsPhoenixEzine �" www.FreedomsPhoenixEzine.com (access to the online e-Zine articles or to download the files for your digital devices is available by subscription only, but if you send me your email and your address here in Sunburst Farms, I’ll create a free account for you to access this valuable information Publisher@FreedomsPhoenix.com )

We invite you to fully participate as our new friends and neighbors.
I understand how this might be a lot to digest, but it is important that we introduce ourselves fully to you as inspiration for our readers and supporters to do the same where they live. Donna and I have been tireless advocates for a voluntary society since the birth of our 4th child in 1989 (I was motivated to seek answers about how my father’s manufacturing business and my service business was being socially and economically engineered by government agencies).

Our family closely identifies with the young individuals and families that have discovered liberty and are rapidly educating themselves on the Internet. Inaccurate information and faulty logic is extensively peer reviewed and debated and a great consensus is forming in the minds of enough individuals that we have a real chance of being able to identify the source of many of our problems.

“There are those that just wish to be left alone… and there are those that just won’t leave them alone… which one are you?”

I hope that you are comforted by our consistent decisions, spanning decades, to promote LOVE and voluntary persuasion, as opposed to fear, violence and coercion in our efforts to transition into a much better future for our children and grandchildren.

Peace.

Your Neighbors,
Ernest & Donna Hancock
ernesthancock@cox.net
donnahancock@cox.net