In this daily vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes gives a candid update on his recovery from a skin infection and shares homestead life. He contrasts natural medicine (Epsom‑salt baths every two hours, sauna, movement, fasting) with conventional pill‑based treatment, noting the infection’s redness has spread slightly but shows no fever or severe pain. Rebecca prepares a "lazy man's" zucchini lasagna using farm‑fresh ingredients, highlighting their self‑sufficient food system: raw milk from cows acquired in 2018, chickens raised on‑site since 2018, and a future plan to make homemade tomato sauce from large garden tomatoes. The couple comments on recent rain that will benefit pasture for their cows. Throughout, the tone is informal and hopeful, emphasizing that the good news (no fever, appetite returning, ability to vlog) outweighs the bad news (expanding redness). The video serves both as a health log and a glimpse into their permaculture homestead routine.
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More Epsom salt bath. That's the thing, natural medicine versus conventional medicine. Conventional medicine, you generally just get a pill. With natural medicine, in this case, Epsom salt bath every 2 hours for half an hour. So that's, that's 30 minutes of every 2 hours taken. Plus you got to set it up, take it down. Rebecca's mixing herbal potions. Sauna, probably gonna do that twice today, making sure I sit in the sun. It's basically a full-time job. The bad thing about this for you guys, well, and for me I reckon, is these videos certainly are no bangers. We've got no viral content here, you know. Poor execution. I mean, a normal vlog, I'm hitting record 100, 150 times, and that's a different angle every time. There's, you know, there's music, action, we're actually doing something. This is about a permaculture homestead, eating what we grow and growing what we eat. And I guess this still is about it. This certainly is. It's maybe not as exciting The good news about that is because I do a daily show, you get to see the reality. Hold on, hold on. It's not always pretty. And what I think is sometimes this is gonna happen, and it's gonna happen to you. I mean, may not be a cut in the forearm, but I mean, Rebecca was just sick, and then I got sick from my injury. It's gonna happen. When it rains, it storms. It's gonna happen to you guys. That's just the reality of it. So I'm leaving behind— I can at least get you a good light, right? I'm leaving behind good execution for these days, and this may be all this show is. This is a little update. I'll perhaps try to get some clips of the remedies, but for an update, one bad news and three good news. The bad news is the redness has expanded beyond the line. It's got about an inch further up my arm. The good news is it's not streaking. I guess streaking could mean it went septic and is going towards my heart. I am not a doctor, by the way. This is not medical advice at all. Just what we're doing. You do you. This is me. Good news is I have no fever. It itches like crazy. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad. Anyway, the good news outweighs the bad. What's this gonna do?
It's just gonna help move your lymphatic system.
And you just light jump?
It was, it was in, was one of the things in the book. Um, Be Your Own Doctor 2, where she talks about cellulitis. Um, movement is good. She was doing sauna. I'm probably treating it as Full-time job.
I'm healing naturally. Rebecca has made a— this is a Rhodes original, dare I say— lazy man's lasagna. I invented it. I just saw some, uh, zucchini. I'm like, let's try slicing this, let's try to dry it in the oven. And putting some spaghetti sauce on it. But the beautiful one, it worked, and she was like, okay, I can perfect this. She took this next level. It's like Chris did for me for Homestead Builds. What did you do? You just put cheese all over it?
A base of Parmesan cheese, then I cut my zucchini and put that on there, and then I cooked it in the oven for like 15-ish minutes. I put a little salt on top of it.
Wow, that helps.
Ricotta cheese, mozzarella, Parmesan, an egg.
And parsley.
I mix that all together and then I put that on top of the zucchini and then I put the— we had leftover spaghetti sauce, so I just put the leftover spaghetti sauce on top of that and then I put mozzarella cheese on top of it.
And I am feeling good enough to vlog. That's another point in the getting better side. My appetite is back. I've been respecting that and I've been fasting. It's been 48 hours. I ate at lunch 2 days ago. Fasting can help, as far as I understand, can certainly help heal. But now I think I should respect the appetite and give my body some nutrients that it must be craving. Energy. Okay, you're just gonna have to sit right there. I'm trying to get you guys to see this while I do this, but, um, hey Rebecca, I like how the cheese on the bottom made it like a layer. It's like all one. It's like it has a crust or something. And you did zucchini rounds. Is there a reason for that? That's even easier. This kind of thing that's gonna have to go in her book whenever that happens. She's got a— it's so easy, but it's also farm fresh food. This is all from the farm. These are our onions. That's our stud muffin. That's our zucchini. Not our cheese, but it could be the spaghetti sauce very soon. I think we're in one of those moments where it's like we're about to have spaghetti sauce and we're not going to know having to buy spaghetti sauce ever again in our lives. That's us with raw milk. How many years has it been we've had raw milk for 7 days a week for 365 days a year? 2019?
2018, when they came. December of 2018.
Was it— was it December? I was thinking it was January. 5 years?
Well, the cows— well, the cows—
ever since we got 2 cows, it makes so that we're always in milk. This is the moment we've always been in chicken. How long have we not had to go without buying chicken? I feel like we had to buy chicken a little bit in 2018. Like we bought some from Yonder Way Farm or something.
Oh, we bought— well, that's because we came home from the tour.
So since 2018.
2018 is when we grew all of our own chickens.
Yeah, this is a moment. This summer, I'm thinking it's a moment we're gonna actually recognize. We're gonna get tomato sauce and we're never gonna know. Yeah, store-bought tomato sauce. For years.
I have tomatoes down there that are like this big.
How big?
Like this big. They're huge!
Look at this. I'm actually eating with my right hand. I could not have done that yesterday. Oh, it's gonna rain. Getting better and it's gonna rain.
It's supposed to rain. Like, for the next, like, we have rain in the forecast for the next 14 days.
Heck, we'll take it.
Which I'm like— It was nice to have a little break, but it was a little too long of a break.
Too long. You can see the rain. Oh wow, yeah, you can see it coming. Here it comes. You can see the wall. Our pastures need this so badly. We were gonna get around the farm and we weren't— we're not gonna have enough food for the cows. Oh, here it comes. This will give us food for the cows. Hear it? Here it comes. Woo! It's raining, Henry! It's evening, about to go to bed. I'm not shivering. I shivered the last 2 nights as I was about to go to bed. Nice sunset, good rain today. Progress in all aspects, except I still have the redness. And it expanded some today. So I think for us to feel good and to feel like we're starting to get in the clear, we need to see some of this redness gone. Hopefully over tonight. Hopefully tonight is the night. I will file a log. We're for sure on the road to recovery. Once we've seen some of this redness go away. All right, happy days. See y'all tomorrow. Let's see if this gets better tomorrow.
