19F! Cow Trough Froze, So I took an ICE BATH in it

Maybe we should take the top layer of ice off. Hey, should we sit in it? You could. Should we go get in our bathing suit and sit in the trough?

Well, I think the pretty place might be easier so we can both get in.

That hurts.

That's like an ice bath right there, Josiah.

Yeah, but I think we need to do it in a pretty place so we can both get in.

All right, warm up the pretty place and I'm gonna come sit in that.

What?

I'll come sit in it.

You will?

Yeah. Good morning. You going with Gideon?

We're right there.

Your coat's right there on the couch, my man. Oh my word. Okay, look what today is— cream separating day. And it's very cold, as you can see. What's the weather? It doesn't look so nice today. Down to 19 degrees. Y'all ready? Polar plunging later?

No, I haven't frozen yet.

Oh, that's good. It's only 19. Hey guys, I guess I'll help Lily find you some water. Okay, I will. Hey, let's stop getting water everywhere. Can you turn this off?

I need that on, Papa.

What on?

Oh, it's gonna be frozen.

That's gonna have water in the line. It's gonna be frozen, so we're We're gonna have to use the spigot. Oh my, you haven't let your Icelandics out yet. Oh my, what'd you find? Oh, look, look, Rachel got Donald some water. He was taking a bath. You taking a bath on this cool 19-degree morning?

Duck!

Hey, Donald's polar plunging. Do your best, Donald. We want to see the plunge.

Come on, Donald.

Oh, John, he won't bounce and I want to throw it.

Oh, he is, isn't he?

Yeah.

Can I go play with Brayden now, Papa?

Where do you want to go?

Play with Brayden.

Sure.

Bakes. Bye!

Let's see, how did I prepare the farm for this cool morning? This is very cool for us, 19 degrees. It's cold. Didn't have to do anything for these guys. The coop is positioned right. The wind's coming from that way, so we have the coop with the walled side towards the wind. Obviously they're all right. They're dipping their head in the water this morning. We emptied their waters last night so they're not frozen. They don't drink at night anyway. Good job, Josiah. Oh look, the lid came off nice. Did you move the luchadors already? You're gonna move them? We'll take one flake of hay please. Actually, let's go do that with them too, Josiah. Come on. Icelandic's in their new spot, kids' garden. Look, look how I positioned them. The sun is mostly there all day. They're against the house where the wind's coming. They're probably the most comfortable. A lot of people worry about their chickens in the cold, but you don't really got to till it's like -20. Just have your open end towards the south, the back end blocks the wind, they're protected from the wind. You're good. You just don't want them to be wet. No frostbite on these guys. What's the axe for?

To bust the cow's water.

Is it that bad? All right, make sure we fill it this afternoon, okay? Okay, because the lines are going to be frozen this morning. Yeah, that reminds me, I need to get my water buckets. Here's one. This can be a skim bucket, but it needs to be cleaned. She's got 10-ish gallons, so she's probably gonna need at least 2. I'm being too conservative on my skim. Look how much I have left. Why is the water off of it.

I don't know, the ice must have pulled it off.

Did you guys break it up? What do we do for the cows? Nothing, they're fine. Hard— also hardy animals. We did do something for the sheep. Does Nacho look a little blurry to you? Look, Nacho, you're blurry. That's because we've got plastic shields here, windbreaks. We even have a roof of it. Right here. Maybe it'll have a little bit of a greenhouse effect. We put it to the wind side, wind coming from over there. That's where the— this— it's going to be windbreaks on 3 of the 4 corners. And maybe they bedded up down there in the hay, who knows. I bet their water's frozen mega, huh? 4 inches. I just realized we need to get to use some water because their water is going to be so frozen solid. Thank you, Jonah. You want to start bringing the cows in? Okay, so for this use, I didn't show you this yesterday. We put a screen over the front and we turn this towards the wind. When I saw them this morning, they were back there laying down. Also a very hardy animal. Huh. Back up. Oh, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Would you come up here and taste this milk to see?

Taste the milk?

Yeah, to see if it's salty. I don't mind putting it in there if it's not.

If you have a second, I'll bring you water buckets.

Okay, perfect.

I was thinking that this one was not it and that these were the 4. Okay, but I wanted to test them to see.

Little sample. Tastes normal. Okay, so that was this one.

It's like I've come to a bar. You're the mixer here of the— my next milk That's so good. Mr. Brown, what happened? No answer. What happened? Oh my word, call the Inquirer, Rebecca. Too cold for Mr. Brown?

Yes.

What are you doing?

It's good. There's your 2 buckets. You think you need more than 2?

Let me think about that.

Are you gonna fill up 2 of those? Well, I guess I'm bringing you maybe 3 more gallons.

Yeah, I'll need another bucket because of that. Okay, then I got a gallon in the fridge saved.

Hey, we still got to go to the pigs and bring that flake of hay there, Josiah. Do you know where another bucket is, Jonas? Oh, a liquid bucket. All right, let's try to Get as much as that out into this and then pour the rest into these. Maybe give the pigs plenty of food this morning since it's cold. Pour the rest into this.

There we go.

Mama has a bucket. Jonah, remember we put these guys out yesterday? They've already done it, man. They've already spread our leaf mulch. I can't even tell the leaf mulch was here anymore. Look how we kept our water 19 degrees and it's still flowing. Never frozen. That's the Everflow waterer draining out to the creek coming up from the pond. Holy smokes, they have almost leveled it here. I guess I should tell you what I'm saying here. I'm saying you throw down that other leaf mulch on this garden and get these guys out of here before they level our raised beds. Yeah. All right, Josiah, they're all gonna need it.

Don't you think the pigs would be the coolest?

Check on them. These fat pigs, you're fine. Uh, well, look what they did. We gave them hay and they nestled. They created a nest. They created a nest in there. They dug down and got together and stayed plenty warm. You're gonna love this. Got eggs in here. We got Uh, banana peels. We got— they go straight for that milk. Heads as still as can be. Straight for the milk, huh guys? Dare I say you guys are my favorite? Dare I say I enjoy you guys the most? Well, I haven't tried to milk a pig yet. I would probably be pretty miserable.

You would be.

That's frozen all the way through, my man. Can you grab that back winch, sir? This is the ultimate test to see if she's kicked her mastitis, if it's gonna filter. Mastitis doesn't filter real well. See, Mr. Brown took off his shoes as he came in. Knock knock! Here we are. Hold this for me. Oh gosh, it's filtering real good.

It's not like it was, I guess.

Okay, you ready?

There you go, man.

How are you? How are you? How are you this morning, hamburger? Hmm, how are you? Hmm, look at that apple cider vinegar slush. Can you see those flurries? It's worrying a little bit. I got Flossie ready to milk, but since it's Monday, we test for mastitis whether we suspect it or not. Phyllis hopefully just cleared it. I think she cleared it. Will get Flossy tested. That's these Jerseys, a little more high maintenance. That's why we're bringing in the American Milking Dev instead. You know, if Hamburger had been a heifer, he would— she'd probably one day be our milk cow. Come here, Josiah. And that she would have, you know, some good milk production, not as good, but she— what we would trade for that, we would get in hardiness. So maybe not as likely to get mastitis. We took one day off and we put the calf on her and she got mastitis. So we're gonna put drops of this in there, 10 in each one, and we're gonna swish it around. It's supposed to absorb it pretty fast. It absorbed it really fast. Did you see that? Did you catch that, Josiah? Like, if she had mastitis we would maybe still see some purple streaks going around, like if I were putting it in the snot or something. You want it to look a little more like you're putting it into water. I think we're done just in time. There's so much— 2 gallons strong. I'm gonna have to scoop it out first.

Wait, did you—

he did peek up. Okay, you're gonna have to help me.

All right. Hey, Jesse, are you gonna co-plunge? Yeah, let's see how cold it is. Hey, we'll do our family workout this afternoon.

21 degrees, but it feels like 7.

Oh, 21, it feels like 7. Okay, that's an exciting plunge. 5 gallons of skim. You guys see why we got 2 pigs? We didn't really need pigs. We harvested like 8 last year. So yeah, we got it for the skim milk and the food scraps. I got a little ahead of myself. I can't, can't think Can't plunge yet. We still got a cow in the stanchion we gotta put out. We gotta feed hay. Say that again.

Unless you want to put the cow and feed hay in our bathing suits.

What are you, Iceman Hoff?

No.

Iceman Hoff climbs the mountain in his bathing suit. In Poland? Is it Poland?

I don't know, somewhere there's deep snow.

Deep snow, deep snow. So we should do our chores in a bathing suit. I'm not that far yet. I don't think I have the Secret breathing techniques.

Yeehaw!

We ready for a swim? Our water from cleaning out the bucket has already frozen. You need anything, or should I just go plunge, Beck?

You can just go plunge.

Okay. I'm gonna take these skims down on our way. How's it feel, man?

Oh, it feels a little chilly.

One reason we do this is little shocks to the system. Short little shocks like cold plunges are really good for the immune system. It's flurrying a little bit. That's good.

I'm not gonna tell you. You guys have to guess.

How cold it is? 40?

42.

42. How cold is the air temp though?

23. Not that bad, it doesn't feel like.

Woo!

Is that bad?

No, no. Not bad.

Not bad?

Oh, it's not bad.

Okay, you want to go another place? You can Polar Plunge close to your ice bath, so you jump out of the Polar Plunge and then you jump into your freezing ice bath.

Oh my— I've never done an ice bath. Oh my gosh, now that's cold. Come measure how cold this water is.

Okay, it's 31.

My feet are numb, I can't feel them. 21 degrees outside.

Woo!

You gonna eat and clean? Then you can come at it.

I gave Jonah chocolate so he would do my chores.

We've been talking for a long time. I think Josiah might actually start a kids' YouTube channel.

I put it back together? Yeah. I gotta go far apart.

Okay.

First you hit it.

Click in that blank area.

I'm Jonah! I'm Josiah! And we make the Rhodes Bros, and we have a special guest today.

What is this? Okay, did you want to keep that wrestling?

Yes. Yeah.

What about this section with no volume?

Oh, we don't want that.

Is it frozen?

Yep. Okay, it didn't thaw out today. There'll be no washing the stanchion this afternoon.

That means no filling the cow water up either.

Yeah, let's go see how Victor's doing. What's happening? Is the water not coming out? Hey guys, we're gonna have to haul water because it's too cold. Hey, take a dip, honey. Yeah, right here. Let's see if it's coming out right there. Yeah, it's dripping. You got it bent?

Yeah.

Hey, let go and see if it's going. Look at that. What the heck? I wonder if we straighten out this white one. See that loop? When it gets filled up, when it gets filled up, just drop it over here. Go turn on our— go turn off— turn it off. What'd you need?

Um, I want to catch—

if I knew you were going to catch a sheep, I would have made you get that crook yesterday.

I know, right?

Oh, there's a crook, Rebecca. You want to get your crook for your sheep?

Where should I get it from?

Or you want to wait and get it from Premier One?

I didn't know I was going to. Let me out.

Do we need fresh hay?

Yeah.

Look at you, you caught her without hay.

Yeah, I want to look at her eyes.

Diarrhea?

Yeah, she's got—

she's got diarrhea.

You mean hold her while you look at her eyes?

Yes, if they have color.

They're not— come here, Miss Thing.

Come here, Miss Pale or white.

She's relaxed.

Yeah, she is. She's a good girl.

She's leaning against me.

Let's look at it.

Are we paranoid from the last incident, or are we just being good? Well, no, I, I think that, um, Claire, our sheep mentor, just said keep them in minerals.

Yeah, she's—

keep moving them like we're doing.

Yeah, she, she has some ideas to Well, she's got a good appetite, she's got good color, her eyes look good. Like, she— they look— she looks alive. Like, she doesn't look droopy. The only thing is, is that she has some diarrhea, and that's probably because of the wet weather that we had all those days, even though we're moving them. But it could also be because when I— when I do refill the minerals, because they eat them so fast that they eat them really hard and then that can cause a die-off.

Well, you remember Nacho and, and Escalito each at separate times had diarrhea and they kicked it. Yeah, I had diarrhea and I kicked it. Wasn't anything serious. Don't open up the cows yet, Jenna. Let's get the calves in here first. Hang on, guys. Not yet, not yet. I'll call you, okay? They're confused because I don't open it and they're so trained. Oh boy. No, come shake that hay, Rebecca. There we go. Mom's distracting the sheep. All right, there you go, Josiah. There you go. Perfect, man. You're a little— you're a little herd boy. I guess you call that a cowboy. All right. Oh look, Flossie's going in heat. Okay, there we go. Good, good job, cowboy. You ready to move these guys? Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! Come on, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! They're self-moved. We won! If only you guys could be as obedient as those sheep. Just moved them. Rebecca replenished our minerals. So 3 major things we're doing to keep these sheep healthy in the first place: moving them every day— the luchadors get moved twice a day— 16 different minerals, moving behind the cows. Cows will digest any sheep parasites they pick up in the grass. They can't live in the cow's rumen. Uh, giving them 60 days— giving the grass 60 days rest to let the parasite cycle go through. So they're not gonna— where they are today— hey, remember that? See where they are now? Josiah and Jonah remembered 60 days ago was your birthday. We came out here and, uh, shot some nice pictures of you guys Moving the fence minerals for the sheep shaw. All right, you ready for the family workout? This is more like the couple's workout. Kids are in by the fire. How's my two favorite gardeners? Come on, you guys staying fat and happy? See, I feed you plenty. Got you some skim. Hay mucho leche. The chickens are done in here. They need to move out tomorrow, but we need to get all this mulch in there. You think we can do that in 30 minutes?

Maybe a try though.

What do you think, Almanzo? Think we can do it?

They're kind of where I need to put the camera.

Well, we did it just over time. I can't believe it. Well, when you set out to do the impossible, that's when extraordinary things happen. We got it covered. Chicken shift over here tomorrow. How's our tree deck? It looks terrible. It does.

It looks so brown, but I think it's gonna come back better than ever.

She's hanging on hope for that thing. It's gonna be bare bones spring. It'll come back. There'll be one little green leaf on it.

Hey, never give up hope.