4,100 Farm Animals Fed: How these Texas Sweethearts Get It Done

This is a meager start to 80 buckets. We're gonna feed a ton, a literal ton.

Can we just put them like in?

Yes, ma'am.

We're gonna feed a literal ton of food to the pigs today.

What's going on?

What's going on?

Saturday morning. Yay, Saturday in the morning, whatever that means.

Means absolutely nothing anymore.

Absolutely nothing after a rough night of just sitting around the fire pit.

I hate Mondays. I mean, what's Monday different?

Is this coffee number 1 or number 2?

This is number 2.

Hey, you've been up a while.

I'm taking in the morning right now, watching him work and acclimated to the day.

That's life's best joy, watching somebody else work. It is, it is.

I'm here if he needs me. I'm protecting the feed from all the other other chickens.

So non-winter, we get 450 every 2 weeks in, and then during the winter we kind of cut that back to like 325. And that's just in case we get— Houston has kind of— not Houston, but Texas in general has stupid weather during the winter, so it may be 30 degrees one day and in 3 days be 80 degrees in the winter. So if you've got to keep them in here for a few days longer, if we do our normal 450, it's a lot of extra work and they're getting too big. So we cut it back about 125 in case we have to do that.

Tell me the truth, you guys like to work together?

We love it, we have a blast.

Every minute?

I mean, it has its good moments. We're with each other a lot.

Good moments?

Yeah, lots of good moments. Just real moments too. Okay, it gets real when you work with your husband. Well, sure, but yeah, we actually— we really love it. We work well together. Um, he's good at things I'm not, and I like to think that maybe I'm good at some things that he's not.

This is partly why you do what you do, right? To have a family business?

It's exactly That's exactly why, yes.

What do you do when there's a conflict? How do you resolve it?

Our rule has always been from the very beginning of our marriage to just never go to bed angry at each other. So by the end of the day, we try to have everything resolved and worked out because we know we're gonna see each other the next day. We know we're gonna have to work together, and it's really hard to go through something, you know, work-wise that's hard and difficult when, like, emotionally we're not good together. To resolve things as quick as possible because we're just around each other all the time. It's like, why, you know, even bother just staying angry at each other?

Have you been able to live by that rule?

Pretty much, yeah. I would say that we have tried to live by that as best we can. I mean, there's some— sometimes where, you know, we go to bed and maybe it didn't get fully worked out, but for the most part, at least we talked about it and started the process.

We usually don't sleep real good. Wake up like—

I was going to say, is it a late night? Late night Any conflicts last night?

No, last night was good.

We were tired, we went to bed, everything was good.

They're on 2 cups of coffee this morning, I don't know.

That was just because the morning felt so right. Yeah, they, uh, yeah, we think a couple of times we've tried to just be like tough and go, hey, we're gonna go to bed mad, and we realize neither of us are asleep and We're both sitting there tossing and turning. Might as well just— might as well get back up and hash it out and finish it. Yeah. You can take the good one.

You talking to nobody.

That's my life story.

Unless you're talking to me.

That's my life story.

I don't think so.

I'm talking to nobody. Do you, uh, you can take the good one and then we'll—

Forgot we had a soccer game.

Oh no, that's our life story. What time?

We are terrible soccer parents. If you don't tell them, they miss the game. Do they really know what time? What time was it?

I have no idea.

I'm not gonna lie, I did kind of think of that last night, but then I thought, surely soccer's over.

Oh, I'm the worst soccer mom.

Well, we already did our snack day, so at least they're not like starving kids, because that's the worst— missed the game and didn't bring the snacks.

And you were the snack person.

Yeah, so you take that one, we'll take this one. This was one of the notes we used to have to put on those doors. If it's not locked, you just have to push or kick it, thanks to the unreal goat headbutting it, to let the dogs in the AC. We just work off the honor system, so we'll have people come in and just make notes of what they got. And then they'll— one lady, I'm like the worst at that, because she like sent me a picture of her credit card and like what she had and, you know, said bill me, and I never did. And so then she just mailed a check. So pretty honest people.

Pretty honest.

These are actually the stupid ones, even though you like them because they stayed in, but the other ones figured out they can just jump. You have a love-hate relationship with the smart ones.

What are we going to go do now?

I'm going to go feed the broilers.

What's y'all's favorite part about doing chores?

Just the hanging out with each other.

Yeah, and it kind of reminds me of, uh, when we first started.

Yeah, yeah, we don't have—

when you had to do everything.

We had to do everything every day. Yeah, which is, you know, on the weekends when we have— when it's our weekend, we have to do everything. Yeah, not—

yeah, so everybody knows you guys have farmhands and you take turns turns on the weekends.

So the weekends we rotate because we always want them to have 2 weeks off, you know, weekends off in a row.

Yeah, there's no way we could do what, what we do every day by ourselves anymore. We've kind of maxed out that.

Yeah, well, way early in the day.

Good morning, Lily!

Good morning!

You gonna ride up this beefed-up machine? Okay. You gonna ride with us, big guy? All right. Hey, I like that shirt. So what is the worst part about chores?

I think if the weather's great, we truly do enjoy it. When it's raining and the worst— and yeah, I think the weather kind of just— we are fair weather fans.

So yeah, what's cold to you?

Below 40.

Oh my God, say 50.

Okay, you are trying to be strong.

Okay, what's hot?

110.

Yeah, I mean, it's got to be hot. We in Texas, you live in Texas, like, you know the summers are going to be brutally hot and humid. Yeah, but you endure that because you know the winters are mild.

Yeah, I'd rather take being hot.

I think we feel like we've been lied to when we get extensive cold. It's like, no, that's not why we made it through that hot weather. We endured that so it would be nice and mild winters. Right.

I've got a lot of respect for the northern—

oh, I couldn't do it.

So much respect. Out chipping water. Yeah, that's frozen.

Calf rope, not doing that. No, I'd be moving. I'd be a snowbird. Yeah, is there a snowbird farmer where you just hook it up to the back and bring it But it too, like, we have black land here and that, it's like walking through wet concrete. It just sticks to you and you'll lose your boots in it. Yeah, and the pig, you know, feeding the pigs is kind of the— everything else is good, but when you go to feeding pigs in that mud, it's— they're running over you trying to knock you down and you're trying to speak nice things to them still, and it's kind of hard. What are y'all doing?

You getting some love this morning?

You getting some love or warm?

Huh?

Which one is it?

Farm fit. I know, I told Justin I can't wait to get back on the farm. Yeah, I can get fit again. I always know if somebody's not doing the job right, they're working for us, is if they stay— if they're not losing weight, then they're still running. I gotta go check.

They gotta up their farm fit game. Good morning, beautiful one.

Good morning.

Up and at them, right to the chores. What do you miss about it?

Well, I'm gaining weight on this trip because I'm sitting around so much.

This is a meager start to 80 buckets. We're gonna feed up ton, a literal ton.

Can we just put them like in?

Yes, ma'am. We're gonna feed a literal ton of food to the pigs today, moving it in 5-gallon buckets. Yeah, so people say, why don't you get a tractor? And I'm like, just because how we feed them in the feeders, either you're gonna have to scoop it out of the tractor.

Yeah.

Or we used to make big feeders, and then what happens if it rains You can't flip them over. Like, it was just— you can't— I try to have everything where we're not— we don't have to have a tractor go in there, because if it turns off muddy, you end up just tearing up your whole pasture.

So how many are there, Mr. Brown?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Good job!

When they're not pregnant or, you know, they don't have babies, we only feed about 7 pounds a day. I've just heard that kind of keeps them in good shape but not too fat, because too fat, then they don't do their jobs.

What do you hope people take away after visiting your farm?

I think more than anything, just that there's a story behind food. And most of the time, people, people never even think about that, that it is one of the rare things that we do, everybody, 3 times a day. And yet it's one that we probably give the least amount of consideration to, other than some people focus on fat content, calories, those type things. But really, how did the food get to my house? Like, for us, we, we enjoy that part of showing them the process of how you take a baby pig and you raise it up, and then the processing of it, to then delivering it and handing it to them and And for them to come out here and see that, like, that's all true and that, that's what, it's what it is. I mean, they'll never get that from a big box store, you know. And so that's, that's our biggest thing. I mean, we don't do, we don't do anything in terms of labeling with, with any type of trendy names or anything like that. We don't want to be certified anything other than transparent. And I think for us, our biggest philosophy is we We want people to see that we really only want our animals to have one bad day. And so when they come here and they see that they're in their natural environment, yes, they are for food, which is kind of weird for people, but man, you couldn't ask for a more better life as an animal up until that point. You know, that makes us proud of it and hopefully them proud to support that and be a part of it.

Something. Going to tell the world again, oh, you're so beautiful. I just can't hold it in. I think we started something. I hope it never ends. I hope, hope it never ends. Don't tell me that the good old days are over. We're two hearts running wild. On and on, we'll move a little closer. We don't have to burn out in the fire. No, we don't have to burn out in the fire. I wanna know, what are you waiting for? I wanna know, just what you're waiting for.

We were wrapping up here, done shooting of course, then I got a text from Jason. One of the mama pigs had her babies. We gotta go see that. They know what to do right away. Oh yeah, they get out and go right at it.