In this vlog, Justin and Rebecca document a severe cold front with 45 mph winds that have damaged farm infrastructure and created challenging conditions on their North Carolina homestead. They describe wind‑blown damage to a chicken tractor and an Agribon cover, discuss the wood‑stove’s struggle to keep the house warm, and tend to a range of animals—neutering a pet dog, caring for pigs, sheep, and a dairy cow (including udder cream). They detail their manure‑and‑wood‑chip composting method, the application of corn feed, and the frozen “sacrifice area” for livestock. The pair comment on the extreme temperature (24 °F with wind chill around 8 °F), debate whether the weather qualifies as a polar vortex, and mention personal health treatment (ozone therapy for Lyme disease). The vlog also serves as a behind‑the‑scenes update on an upcoming pilot episode they plan to film for 12‑13 hours the next day, including references to past short‑film collaborations and promotional calls‑to‑action. The overall tone is informal, conversational, and pragmatic, mixing practical farm work with light‑hearted banter.
Chapters
Wind gusts as high as 45 miles per hour. The winds have been so crazy lately. Yesterday I forgot to latch my chicken tractor. The wind got a hold of this top and we came out here, we heard the bang, and the top lid was over there. We've put it back on, just temporarily put this because we totally destroyed the hinges. We put these rocks and sandbags on just to get us through the storm. The Agribon has been completely ripped. Like, it's gone. Like, it's supposed to keep cut— here it is. Here's a piece of it.
Look at that.
That used to be up there. I heard this loud bang last night. It was the top of our wood stove piping. I don't know if we've been keeping up with our wood stove good enough. It had gotten down to like 165. I think it's colder than I imagined or estimated, and we have I haven't been loading it good enough, but we get— we got to get back on that and keep up with it. It feels bitter cold, and then that wind just like pierces everything. Come here, Teddy. He got neutered yesterday and a little baby tooth pulled, and he's not been the same since. You've been kind of slow and sad, haven't you? Yeah, but you've been a good boy. You've not been licking it. You've not been getting too excited.
Well, I'm not gonna be cold.
Why do you say that?
Well, I have overall jacket and stuff.
What about you? You gonna be cold? Good. And you?
Two jackets and a sweater.
All right, let's do it. Hey, we got everybody? Okay, we are not gonna waste time this morning. Yeah, come on. 45 mile an hour winds. Got woke up last night with the bang at 2:45 AM. Nice deposit. They're mostly blocked from the wind. They got our house blocking them, they got the hay blocking them, they've got the woods and the wood chips walking over there. They're open to the south, which usually the wind doesn't come from the south, but it seems like this wind's coming from everywhere. Okay, bro, man, let's go. Come on. This is the coldest— it's got to be the coldest day of the year. How cold is it? Gosh. And yesterday, last night, I couldn't sleep because, well, the wind, and I was afraid the stove wasn't keeping up. And then, uh, I got ozone treatment yesterday for the first time. Trying to continually fight the Lyme disease. I think it's supposed to give you more energy. I think it might have worked. Maybe I need to get treated earlier so I don't wake up at 2:45. This is so cold. I have to take a break for a minute. Just put my hands in my pants. You know what is Sunday? Are you cold? What? Sunday is the lowest, 9. The lowest, 9 Sunday? Well, what's the low right now? Uh, 50 minus? Actually, wind is making more cooler. Yeah, I would say so. You know, the news tries to call something a polar vortex. I think that's just a scary way to say cold front. But I think today we might— if there's such thing as a polar vortex, it's happening right now.
I know.
By the way, this works out great having insurance just along the concrete. We kept them off the sacrifice area. We put them there this morning, but we kept them off all day. It's scraping off nicely. It's working. It's getting Phyllis plenty of room. She's not getting beat up anymore. It's working. We're perfecting this thing.
Hey, you know it's cold when the poop's frozen to the concrete.
It's 6 inches of wood chips. We've buried the manure as they've gone, but We've gone all the way across with burying the manure. So now we're gonna throw the corn in a pattern here and just— I think that's probably plenty. Maybe, maybe a little smaller. Maybe let's apply today's ration of corn. I'm doing about 12 pounds a day. He's going to put all the manure from today here on top of the corn. And then we're gonna put the wood chips on it so we have a nice nitrogen-carbon mix. Corn's getting buried for the pigs later in the spring. How's it going, Josiah? All right, we're done. We've got her milk, probably 2 gallons of milk. We've got the manure covered a nice— gosh, we added a nice 3 inches there in sections. So we're building this bed up gradually. I'm excited about that. The sheep are fat and happy. Look how big they're getting. Pregnant, due next month. That's exciting. All right, well, we're gonna flirt them, as Jonah would say. The flock and the herd join because our sacrifice area is frozen, so they're not gonna muddy it up.
But the udder cream.
Oh yes, shoot. Oh shoot, she's right there. I gotta do udder cream. I wonder if she'll let me do this right in the field.
Hurry, rabbit!
Maybe she'll go back in. Better than nothing. I gotta remember to do that. Hey, beautiful one! How cold, just tell me how cold is it out there?
Okay, so the temperature reads 24 degrees, but with the wind chill it's 8. It feels like 8 degrees.
It is so cold outside. Did you say 8 minus 80? Yeah. 8. So like, 8 minus 8 still.
Us, us, uh, North Carolinians are like, this is cold!
I don't know if I've experienced anything, definitely not this year. No. Maybe not even last year with that wind.
No.
Now that's a polar vortex.
The wind.
This ain't no cold front. There's a storm going on.
Yeah, this is the polar vortex.
Yeah.
Justin hates that, so if Justin's calling it a polar vortex, then you know it's a polar vortex.
Yeah, that's just the Weather Channel drama for views. But, uh, this is it. 45 mph winds, Beck.
Yes, the winds is insane.
Bad stuff happens at 45-mile-hour winds.
I know, that's 8 degrees. It's so destructive. Last night it was just like howling, and I was like, oh, what's— what is it tearing up? I hope— I was like, I had like horrible visions in my head of like the high tunnel gone.
Yeah, I just thought that I probably need to— I see our temperature is going up, so I just need to go check the wood stove, make sure Yeah, it's loaded like this when it's this cold.
We probably need to check it more than twice a day.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Just kind of nervous to look around. 179. What was it this morning? I forgot. I hear the blower going though. Okay, we're burning, we're burning wood. We're burning wood too good. Let's stuff that fat. Ready? Wow! And it went up to 180 while we did that. Okay, I'm encouraged by that because I didn't like that flame coming up. That's going good. I think we're just playing catch-up. I think what Rebecca said is right. We probably just got behind with it. Okay, I'm gonna call it a vlog. It's cold and miserable. I've got a lot of work to do with this new show I'm working on. The pilot episode. We're shooting the shot. We're shooting tomorrow for 12 hours straight. Probably end up being 13. I didn't make no use of my time at 2:45 in the morning. I actually went through some of the shots that Ben is requesting from me. Here are some interesting things I dug up. Should I show them, Becca? Should I let them know? Should I see it? Should I let them see that silly skit I did when I was about Josiah's age? Yeah, it's terribly embarrassing. Okay, roll it.
You think he knows? No. Hey, that's my woman there! You think— No. Yeah, where'd he go? I don't know.
Cut it off.
No option. Where'd he go? Where did he go? Jason, wake up! I'm the good fairy Jennifer. You lost your invisibility when you fell. I'm looking for my dad now!
Okay, and then, but And then I found some prettier stuff from warmer days.
Oh.
So that's it. If you want to see the show that inspired my new show that I'm working on, um, link in description. So you'll join my email list, we'll give you that short film that they did on us a number of years ago. It was Several years ago they did that film.
It was 2016.
But tomorrow, you ready for the big day tomorrow? 12 hours of filming. No. They want to interview with you.
I know, they can interview me.
So you gonna take a shower today?
I'm going to shower. I'm gonna wash my hair.
We're gonna get this crunchy mama in the shower.
He is making fun of me. I just don't— I take a shower every day. I just wash my body. I don't wash my hair.
So we're all getting cleaned up. I gotta trim my whiskers. It's gonna be a big show. We're gonna show you behind the scenes. Jason from Southern Land is coming. He's gonna be one of the— one of my helpers. It's gonna be quite the ordeal.
