18 Builds | 18 Years: He Built Our Farm, Now He Builds His Future

In this video, we celebrate my firstborn turning 18. Are you taller than me yet?

No, not yet.

Come here.

Who's taller? Thank you.

To celebrate, we're gonna look at at least 18 of his 18 incredible, unbelievable builds for a guy his age in this video. But more importantly, we'll watch a boy become a man and explore what One very difficult thing we had to do as parents to help facilitate that or allow it. But Jonah, it started with little things like chicken systems. Hey, show me what's going on with your chicken pen here.

I don't know, but I did open this like right here for the— so someone would go get that feed, but none did. I think they flew over.

Really? And Jonah was my first right-hand man helping me on the farm and helping build things as well. You think together we can finish this chickshaw today? Yeah, I know you want to.

Do we have to do any more bracing?

Uh, we do have to do some little more thoughtful stuff. Now Jonah, measure between those two spots because we want an inside cut. No, no, no, gotta go from inside to inside. Sorry. And then his first big build where I knew we had something special on our hands. The Little Log Cabin.

You can see we've built this cabin. I got permission from Mom and Papa to go build a cabin. I came out here, cut down some trees, and started building.

Y'all remember the madly popular water wheel? Let's try taking this brake off.

Oh! Oh!

Log cabin, water wheel, and now an electric bike? That goes way too fast for a parent's comfort. What do we got here?

An electric bike?

What? The dude made an electric bike.

Woo!

The other one was what I guess we saw in building his chicken system is we let them fail. That's the hard part.

We have to be quiet.

We don't think. We know it's not gonna work. Just shut up and let them do Let them have the experience. You cheer them on, and if it fails, you're there to pick them up. And if it succeeds, they're there to blow your mind. Let's see how that worked out with some of his other builds.

This is the phone charging station that I built. Maple and poplar to build it. My family really likes to use it because the phone chargers don't move, meaning kids don't run off with phone chargers and they stay in one place. Yeah, there's a cutting board I built. Um, how I built it is I cut bunch of different strips of different types of woods and glued it together. The reason I built it, I was just trying to learn how to make cutting boards. This is a wooden spoon. I built it, just cut out a piece of wood and then sanded it down to make it look like a spoon, and I think everybody likes using it pretty well. This is a bumper I built for our side-by-side Salma. Lily had ripped the other one off, so I built a new one for it. How I built it is I had some old gate that from the hurricane, one of the gates had gotten destroyed. The And I had some leftover steel from the greenhouse that also got washed away, and I just cut it and welded it all together.

Where'd you learn how to weld?

I learned how to weld at Ben Holler's place. He taught me a few years ago. This is the trailer that I renovated. It was up on the mountain for a few years, and then I just brought it down and took a bunch of the sides off because it had been a trailer for an RV and it was a little bigger. So I cut some of it off, added some stuff on the edges, and put boards and fenders and some other things on. The dock I built last summer. I built it on here so that more people would want to come up here and swim in our pond.

Does it work?

Yeah. How I built it is I got a telephone pole, ran it across and supported on some rocks, and then just ran the deck across. This is our guest cabin and one day to be my home. The things that I did on is I put the roof on and sanded the logs down. The reason I helped build the cabin is because one day I wanted to live in it.

How's it gonna feel one day to be— Over here with a wife and a—

it's gonna feel really nice.

Some kids one day. And what will you tell them about this wall over here?

I'll tell them that I had to sand it. These are the shelves that I built over here in our, uh, bash shed just to hold all of our chicken coops and other stuff that can fit up there. Got 6x6s and set them up across here and then just ran 2x4s across the top and then decking on. It works pretty well and, uh, everybody likes to use it. Saves space. This is the coat rack. Um, I built it because all of our coats were just being put on here and falling off and going everywhere. How I built it is I had some old curtain rod dowels, just sanded them down, and then got a piece of maple wood, sanded it, and then just screwed it from the other side and then put it on the wall. Everybody likes using it. It holds our coats a lot better. This is the bear carve from an old pine log. It was very thick. I just used a chainsaw to cut everything out. The reason I did it is for decoration over at the cabin. So that it would feel like a bear was around. This one really wasn't the best build. Nobody really thinks it looks like a bear. Henry told me it was a dog.

Okay, but now Henry's 4.

Yeah.

Hey, talk about this— adding this retainer wall after the hurricane. Hurricane washed out from here over, and this, this was land and bank.

Also put like a 150-foot one right here to protect the pole barn. We put in this retaining wall about a year ago to protect the pole barn from water and make a canal just so it wouldn't wash stuff away. Josiah brought rocks down with the skid steer and I stacked them with the excavator. My family really likes it because it saved them a lot of money from not having to buy bricks to put down.

Then we got hit by Hurricane Helene and it took out our bridge. He blew us all away when he said he's gonna fix the bridge, and for months we put it off. We said no, we got to get a professional. Professional to do the bridge. We got to do this professionally with culverts or steel. And he said, I'll just get the locust posts. I found them down here. They were actually down here. Jonah persisted, and we just, just said okay. We gotta let them fail, even though this failure could be disastrous.

Hold it there. Just set it down. We gotta put the big one in first. These logs are warped and bent. That's good.

Easy with you guys building this back, huh? Easy. And what are we in so far? $30 for screws?

Wow!

No sagging. And it absolutely blew us all away. And finally I'm saying in my heart, he can do it! And he did it! And now he's been taking his building skills and working towards independency. Working on our guest house that will one day be his house. And see this bench? One of the most important things he can learn. The beautiful one, my wife, asked him, his mom, can you build us a bench for this cabin? And he said yes, but he was about to experience his lesson in how to work and treat a woman.

Out here building this bench for Mama for the cabin. Just figuring out how to make it sturdy enough so that people can sit on it.

Yeah, you think it'll last long enough to be your bench?

Yeah.

All right, you just saved us $40. Let's see that bench in place. Nice.

Uh-oh, no wobble.

Is that a wobble?

No, that's just— it's so small. Oh, I don't wobble that way.

All right, good deal. She might not like that front brace, but we'll see.

Yeah, it's the only thing I could really think of that would look good. You don't think it would work?

I mean, I don't mind, but she's a woman. That's a good point. I won't mind. And it's done, and it's mama approved. Looks really good. She added tung oil, and this bench has come together nicely. Saved us $40, and now he has a piece of— hey! Hey man, now he has a piece of furniture that is not only built off the farm— that's our wood— he built it. And there's memories here. And he learned how to treat a woman. And one day he will have his very special woman sitting on that with him and his chiddlers. That's pretty neat. You guys survived the cold weather. Let's go with that wind, huh? That'll make men out of us. Yeah, you guys done processing? You get the cream?

No, let's do the cream.

But don't worry, Jonah has still found some time to do some fun things to build his independency. Like, he just took up deer hunting and he just got his first buck, and he built a nice decorative skull head out of it.

I need to boil it a little bit more to get it to come apart just a tad bit.

What you doing?

Waiting for it to come to a slow boil, and then I'm gonna put the Lawn Care 40 in.

Ah, you're supposed to put plastic over there.

Yeah, that's so that I don't turn the horns a different color.

You don't want to bleach them?

No. I'm so excited to get this done. I've been doing it since like Wednesday.

When is it gonna be done? Tonight?

Yeah, it's gonna go on It'll look like that. That's the idea. I got the plaque on the wall. Now I'm gonna put the deer head up. Deer skull, I guess.

Nice. How did you hang that board on that?

I just put a screw into the back.

Dang. I like it. What's on the menu for your birthday boy?

Oh, we have biscuits and fried chicken with sausage gravy and shrimp and grits.

Shrimp's new for us.

It is new. I've never really made shrimp. And then we're also gonna have some fruit that I bought, out-of-season fruit that he requested, which is watermelon. I don't know how good it's gonna be.

And, um, watermelon in December.

Watermelon and pineapple. Now pineapple is more— I think it's more seasonal.

That's a modern miracle right there. Watermelon in December. Homegrown sausage coming right up. Creamy dreamy grits. A family favorite. Fried chicken from the land. Gluten-free. Good friend, neighbor coming and hanging out. Chicken broth going, but that's for another day. Leave it to Jonah to give us a white meal. Good choice. Also one of my favorites. Yes, one of your favorites.

Yeah.

Adam, you ever had creamy dreamy grits? I know you have regular grits. First time. What do you think?

Great.

You'll never go back. Extra dreamy, made with cream and cheese. That'd be the big difference. What would you do if that was 100 macro bars?

$1,300 in macro bars.

What is this for?

The farm?

Is it a Carhartt or an Arhart?

It's a Carhartt. Oh yeah, thank you.

Point it to here.

Oh my gosh, is that the first one?

Yeah, it was the first.

Is that your first deer?

Yeah. No, not the first deer, first buck.

Maybe this one's exciting. Are these blue blocker glasses? Glasses? Yes. Oh, it's a knife.

Oh, that's fun, right, Henry?

Yeah, that's nice. Oh, that one's from me and my company. That was for me and my company. You're still gonna grow. No coupon for 2 dishes. Oh, are these collector coins? No.

Is that just to trick me?

Oh, it's to be heavy.

Oh.

He didn't have enough money, so he started taking quarters.

I saved it. Oh, okay. Oh, writing tomorrow.

It was supposed to arrive today.

A wallet.

Yes, I needed a wallet.

He takes me to get ice cream.

Yes. You take him on fun trips.

Fun to be around. He likes to build. He takes me wherever I want to go when I ask him to.

He's nice. He's fun to be around. He's good at soccer.

You have been the experiment.

And we have done a lot of experiments with parenting with you. We hope we've done a good job.

Making this video, one thing I thought of is let's talk about your builds. We've already named 12 builds or something, and then you come to me with 2 more. They started out, and some still are, real fun. And I just let you go, and you— I don't think you ever cease to amaze me. And there were some builds I completely doubted. Wasn't that one that you wanted, that little go-kart that you guys built? A go-kart, and it only went 2 or 3 miles an hour and didn't go very far. Remember that? You guys made it from the basement to the field. And your builds have become more and more manly and self- worthless as you get older. And so at first you're just building to explore your creativity, and now you're building to make the world a better place and minister to your family and to help other people. And it's wonderful. You've kind of been the leader and the mother in your dad's right hand. So many things that you've helped him tremendously. Blizzards!

I don't see happy birthday.

Yeah, bring him in here. We gotta sing happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Victor!

Blow out the candle. Oh, what'd you wish for?

Can't tell you.

Chocolate wafer cream cookie with chocolate wafer cream cookie. The organic Oreo chocolate and peanut butter cup with Alden's ice cream. Any final words of advice for young boys out there wanting to become a man like you?

I don't know, just work hard. That's all I've got.

You heard it, boys. Just work hard. And parents, just let them be. Let them— give them time to explore their creativity. They are learning even though they aren't in the books. They're learning. And let them fail, and you'll be there to pick them up, or you'll be there to cheer them on, hooray, and give them a congratulations if they succeed. You cannot lose. Happy day.