8th Day of Christmas

and on the farm. And tomorrow we will be giving away a Meadow Creature. Hello from Florida. Hello from the— and this one's had its hiccups. You know, we've got a trailer behind us. Yeah, can y'all see that trailer back there? That was for a pony, and we're on our way home and there's no pony in it, uh, but we're sorting it out and we're still hardcore pony for Peaches, and we think it's still going to happen today. It's, it's been an interesting story. So yeah, we went to see, uh part of our team, part of our Abundant Permaculture team, one of our editors. And they just had a baby, and we just went and hung out with them, held the baby, all the good stuff. Do you enjoy holding that baby, Beck?

Oh, I did. It was fun.

Did you get the baby bug?

It did not make me feel like I needed another baby. It was fun to hold him, and then when he needed his mother, to give him right back. And I enjoyed it all. I enjoyed the whole process.

You know what you sound like right there? You just sound like a grandparent. Maybe we're in that mode. That's always what grandparents— I know.

Well, they're kind of this is kind of like my grandchild. They're kind of like our children.

These guys have become part of the family, and they could technically be our children. Easy.

They are part of our family now.

So we've— they work for us, they become part of the family. So let's, let's do this. Oh, I should have— this might be a little tricky to do. Okay. Oh yeah. We're gonna— what is that? Yeah, is that where I put your phone? So it's gonna be a little tricky today being that I'm driving. What? Oh, does it not work with the case on? All right, see these? Oh wow, you see these old people maneuvering the, uh— we're acting like grandparents, aren't we?

I know.

Okay, so let's do a random location selector. I should have— yeah, call our grandkids. Hey, How do you do the internet thingy?

There's no shame, no shame.

Okay, so we're gonna do a random location selector. Sorry, I should have had it, but you know what, it's not as real when I, uh, if I pull it up beforehand. So what we're gonna do, guys, go to, uh, it's a link in the YouTube description, is abundantpermaculture.com/map, and get on the, get on the directory. Guys, oh, I'll tell you this story. Use the right two lanes. We were, we were going over, I don't know, mid-North Carolina, and it's rural out here where we're going, and it looks like, you know, neighbors are going to be few and far between. I'm like, oh my goodness, where's Austin and Ashley gonna find anybody? I don't need one of these. I don't want to pay for this. Where's the free one I've been using? Okay, you know what I'm gonna do? Graham's here. Graham, help me out. Do a random location selector, Graham, for the United States. So while Graham's doing that, I'm gonna tell the story. Thank you so much, Graham. Graham is our— the man behind the curtain, the Community Happiness Manager. So we're We're over here, mid-North Carolina, and it's rural. Everything's few and far between. And I think, is there anybody out here? Where are they going to have community? You know, because we've— we— I feel like we have a rich community where we are. We've been able to build over the last few years. And I said, you know what? I said, oh wait, there's a community map. So I go to the community directory, abundantpermaculture.com/map, and I type in the name of the city and I put in 50 miles. Now granted, we're not too far out from Charlotte. Uh, yeah, we're gonna give it a moment here while Beauty changes lanes, my chauffeur over there, so I can go live and get some work done on the computer. She's pulling an empty trailer there and back. I guess you get some trailer practice.

Well, I'm sad because I wanted to bring this apartment.

Yes, you wanted to bring them and the other kids. We could have brought all the other kids.

Okay, but they didn't want to come while we wait on Grant.

Yeah, I know. Uh, as much as they love us, Austin and Ashley, they're a couple of teenage boys. They don't want to drive 6 hours round trip. We do have a little Mr. Wild Man, and then Lily, uh, baby lover, horse lover. Okay, so I went to the map the directory and I typed in their city and put in 50 miles, I was blown away. There are like 25 people. Here we go, we got a winner. All right, uh, the winner is in Taylorsville, Utah. So now, Graham, if you don't mind— thank you so much, Graham, this is going much more smooth with you on here— uh, Taylorsville, Utah. So Graham, Graham is going to do a search on the map just like I did visiting Austin. I went to the map, I typed in the name of the city. That's what Graham's gonna do right now, what we've been doing over the last few days, these 12 Days of Christmas. And he's going to put in— probably in Utah you're probably going to go 50 miles. You might have to go a little further. I noticed people are more spread out out west. But Graham, um, let me know how many people are in a 50-mile radius or how far you had to expand before you found somebody. Uh, he's gonna go see who's closest to that location in, uh, oh, he says choose a number between 1 and 4. Definitely 3. Definitely 3. 3's company, Graham. So I picked number 3. So there must be 4 people within a 50-mile radius of that city in Utah. That's amazing. So Graham's about to give us the winner. I finished my story. So I did the search. We had 25 people Uh, and that wasn't even like from the center of Charlotte, that was the outskirts of Charlotte. So, so, you know, I was telling Austin about it. I was like, you got to get on the directories so people can find you and you can find others. And he's like, well, what would we do? Well, you just contact them and say, let's trade a tour for tour and let's see each other's places and see what you got. See what— show them what you have, see what they got. Yeah, show them your baby. It doesn't even have— like, Austin and Ashley have a Chickshaw, a flock of chickens. They hope to get some. That's it. A dog. Oh, they have bees. Like, he's really good at bees. Like, I was asking him questions about bees.

People love babies. I love babies.

Yeah, they have a baby. They have bees. Like, he's, he's gone to me for years, you know, before he was our editor. He was looking at me for advice and homesteading, but today I'm getting advice for him on bees because we're getting bees in April. Lord willing and the creek don't rise. Okay, we have a winner. Her name is Venise Elcia. So you win the, the, the Justin Rhodes style Sturdy Brothers Charles apron. It's an amazing apron, waxed canvas, two pockets. Right now those two pockets are filled, and my two pockets are filled with gloves, a quick connect and a lot of hayland. Remember, Buck says hey. It's held toboggans, it's held tripod heads, it's held, uh, garden stakes, it's held garden trowels, toys. What's the weirdest thing I've ever had in my apron? So, Graham, if you'll please get that contact information to Heather, thank you so very much. Yeah, we're on our way to get a pony for Peaches. Peaches is Lily's horse. Livestock 101, animal 2x2, animals go. And so we've got to get a pony for Peaches. We had, we had found one. We were going to see my team member for Abundant Permaculture, our video editor and the vlog editor and, uh, and filmer and Uh, we couldn't— what was I gonna say? Um, oh, we were seeing them and this pony was out this way. It was an hour and a half more, uh, and we thought we'd meet. It didn't quite work out. We have an empty trailer behind us, but we think we've got the pony coming this evening. A different one than we set out for, but somehow we lined up another. I can't wait to tell you guys this story. That'll, that'll drop. These days I'm shooting a vlog on a— if it's a Monday, it comes out a week later, so the Monday after, which has been working out good for our editor and for me and, and, and the guy who designed— and the thumbnail designer and all that stuff. Gives us some time. So Tammy says congratulations. I'll tell Lily congratulations. This pony is buggy ready, so we're gonna be able to hook up, you know, and it comes with a buggy.

No, it doesn't.

So Peaches, yeah, if we want to have the buggy, Peaches, Peaches will have a buddy and we'll have a buggy. Well, Mecca says maybe it doesn't, but anyway, uh, the Charles apron, I swear that, I swear by that apron. I'm glad somebody won it. And for all of you out there, you might want to check it out. It's called Sturdy Brothers. It's made in America. They're made in Georgia. We went and saw them. We went and saw the two brothers on the Great America Farm Tour in 2017. Legit guys. We went and had lunch with them. Doing really cool stuff, making really quality stuff made in America. Okay, they're saying yay Lily, I'm so happy for you and Peaches. Yeah, we gotta—

workload doubled.

Yeah, I say poor little Lily, her workload doubled, but good, good for Lily. It's— she's learning so much responsibility. She's bossing us around on this, she's teaching us things. It's been good because we have to trust her because we're not into horses and she is, and we're saying, you know, it's all you. And so that means we're not directing anything. That means she has autonomy with this, and it's really— it's been really good for her. All right, Jamie says more vlogs please. That is the kindest compliment I could ever receive. Thank you. Uh, the kindest thing anybody can say to me on a comment is, 'That vlog needs to be longer.' That means it was good and you want more. So we'll try. We're trying. Yeah, never be afraid to learn things from your kids, for sure. We are live, so I better not keep getting in the background too long. So anyway, I want to wish everybody a happy, merry Thanksgiving, Eighth Day. Tomorrow we'll be back in the farm. Did I say Thanksgiving? Christmas. I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas. Happy New Year's, because it's New Year's Day. Okay, so the traffic was a lot better this morning, although it's still not bad. But if you ever want to travel somewhere, you want to have a hack, go New Year's Day when everybody else is still sleeping in. In the morning.

We left at like 7:45.

We left at 7:45. We didn't see a car for like 25 minutes, and that is not normal. And then we were on the highway and there was maybe— you can maybe see a dozen cars up through there. There was maybe one or two. All right, uh, Grandma's Gardening is planning her 2024 garden. Good for you. You know, they say what you do on the first day of the year is indicative of what you're going to do the rest of the year. So I sure hope for us it's not driving around buying ponies.

No, I agree with you.

So I hope it means—

I hope it means that we have a ponytastic year.

It means we have a ponytastic year. It means we get up early, we work hard, we hang out with friends, we bless somebody with some food, there's cinnamon rolls in our lives. We hold babies. We hold babies. I'll take that. So let's see what everybody else is doing. Definitely Lily's going to be all about horses. Yes, I'm on her to make some horse videos. So what do you— if today is indicative of the rest of your year, what'd you do today? Oh, she said— you know what Lily said to that? Chores take like twice as long when I film it. See, reality. But you know what I say, don't you, Lily? You're not out there doing horse chores, you're out there making a movie about doing horse chores. That's What gets me through that, you know, if I didn't let the camera slow me down, you guys wouldn't get to come along. It's worth it to me. You know, the kids slow me down too. You know, if I take Henry or Mr. Brown, it's so terribly slow to take them with us. But what are we living for? Hopefully to take others along with us. And so I'm happy. Yeah, they're saying it's even slower to take me along because I got the camera and I'm taking all you chiddlers along. All my nieces and nephews.

What?

Oh, and I'd make them do things right. Yeah, they like the autonomy and taking charge of the farm because I'm not there to, you know, nitpick and get everything done exactly the right way. Okay, they love the movies of the chores. Isn't that something? We just like normal life, don't we? Just like We just like to see others living a normal life. They learn by watching. Looks like you have a 1.5 million— you're 1.7— 1.07 million you're taking along with you. Yeah, that's a heavy little backpack sometimes. That's a heavy little Ergo. Somebody's building a tiny house, so good. Wow. You're in them. Stay in the white ones.

I'm trying, but they just shifted without actually shifting.

All right, so I'm gonna hop off of here. We're gonna get Lily— or Rebecca— focused on the road. She got through that. I'm focused.

I was focused. All of a sudden the lines shifted and they didn't shift. They just went—

don't go live and drive.

I'm not.

Don't go live and drive, darling. Okay.

And I feel like the lane is small.

Yeah, they said be safe. All right. We better not push it. Okay, Merry Christmas. See y'all tomorrow. It looks like we're giving away a Meadow Creatures Broad Fork tomorrow. We'll be back in the farmhouse, in the studio, Lord willing, the creek don't rise. Hey Allison Day, thanks for coming back. Thanks for coming to so many of these shows. We appreciate you. Uh, get on there and then we're gonna get down so she can get over. All right, getting inside that directory, abundantpermaculture.com/map. All right, have a good one.