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Getting the sunshine in our eyes.

Wow, guys, it's not gonna freeze for a long time. Let's get the Everflow water going, babe. Happy day! Welcome to our life. Welcome to our homesteading life. We got a pump, although is it worth it? Because I've been having to run the air conditioning at night. You can't run the air conditioner at night if you have the wood boiler on. This is to fix our wood boiler. At first we thought it was just our frozen water lines from when we were gone that was wrong with this wood boiler. Pump does seem to be acting up. This is a more self-sustaining heat source than propane. We left our boiler off while we were gone and it was like single digits, so I think— well, certainly the water in these lines froze under the house. This pump though, it turned on. It didn't always turn on when I plugged it in. Seems to be working. Wait, I hear water running through it. Wow, pump's working! Water's running through this. Maybe it just took forever for the water in these lines to thaw out, right? Let's try it. Gotta be careful with that flame bouncing back. Lost some eyebrows the other day. These are the inside lines. I think they already feel warmer. What's the plan for the retainer wall? Do we have enough stone, uh, boulders? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's about to start to be not as high stack. That's fine. You get some from the— what happens if you get some from the cabin too? Huh? Yeah, that'll finish it up. Bring all those over and then the Mini X starts stacking them. It's pretty rare what we just went through. 10 days of below freezing weather, every 5 to 10 years really. There's been an adjustment with Blaze coming back, with us coming back. To Blaze. He's been pinning his ears, but he's doing good right now. Hey, doing better? Hmm, wow. Go to the side. He doesn't mind as much. Wait, wait, wait for his ears to get relaxed. All right, come back, come back. I came out here and made a mistake and did not feed him right away. He pushed over the water in protest. I'm coming, beefcake. Sorry. Hope you like apples, beefcake. No grain for you today. You're a fruititarian. They like apples. Oh, come on. No, he doesn't like apples. It's apples today, bro. What? What's that gonna do, beef? Well, after wallowing in it, he decided to eat it like a kid refusing to eat his vegetables. And now you're eating clumps of dirt with it. Beefcake, good job. There you go. See if you like it. Look at these little guys venturing further out every time. You would drink the mud puddle, wouldn't you? Jeez. Well, Mama Pig ain't picky. She didn't knock any out, you goofball. Hey, will you behave while I'm gone? Sure doesn't make it easier that it's not freezing. Fill these waters off. Let's just check on Jonah real quick. Don't you do it. Jonah's got a task for me. Get this wire off this telephone pole so we can move them. I think I just need a wrench. See if our water lines are warm. Okay, okay, all right, all right. Hot to the touch. We may have gotten our boiler working, although we didn't do anything but just let the lines thaw out. Note to self: antifreeze in it or keep it running when I'm on vacation. Let's get on our assignment. There it is. Wow, you did it! Nope. Wow, that thing's in there. There it is. And what would y'all do with that telephone pole? At least we got something out of Hurricane Helene. Come up 1 degree. Okay. Is that just because it's warm, or is that because it's working? It's working. It's working. Important to us, heating our house from the land. Something special about your core basic need coming from the land. We've got it down with our food, getting it done with our heat. Hey, what do you think? Wood boiler's working, the retaining wall is done. We inherited a telephone pole. Could it get any better? Yes, it could. We could get this Everflow waterer going. It might be that we don't have water chores to the youth group the rest of the way. Youth group is there. They're eating out— they're drinking out of the creek down there. It's fine. It's not great. I'm going to show you in a little bit why it's not great. Uh, hopefully I remember somehow. Can you guys summon some Back to the Future energy and remind me? To tell you. I mean, I'm filming this a week before you see it, so you've got to go back. It's definitely not any water coming through here. Well, let's double check. No, there's nothing coming down the line. All right, I'd be really happy by the end of this scene we have our Everflow waterer over there where they are flowing and we're not damaging the creek anymore. We're not pooping in the— we're not drinking in our own poop. The line wasn't compromised anywhere. Is water coming through the tank? It's not filling up. That's good. You don't want it to fill up. Well, that means our line is compromised somewhere. You want to walk down through, see? We got a great flow of water, so that's not it. You already found it? Okay, handy to have the little guy walk the line. Good news and bad news. That's clogged, or that that's working. Good, and that's working, but it's bad. Like, well, what the heck else is it? I think there's water in this. Found it! Oh, maybe not. You found that breach? Yeah! Heck yeah! Shows how much I know. There's not water in that. Uh, if it's breached up here. So do we need to go get our kit? I better go look at it. Okay, I'll dare to come to you. Oh yeah, it's flowing nice. So this has come apart. Something has fallen on it and pulled it apart because it's— it's— there's no getting it back together.

Yeah, literally.

So we're actually— there's so much brush on this house, like so much. We're gonna have to get an extension.

Okay, 10 places.

That's a pretty easy fix. Let's just hope there's not more of them. Beautiful one says I go through these stages, these happy stages. I'm gonna be happy no matter what. I went through an "I'm alive" stage. Remember that, Austin? Can you throw back to one of those? Somehow we can find one. Bonus points for employee of the month if you find that one. Austin, happy day! We woke up this morning. Yes, it's a new day. Although, Austin, Annie did work till like 8 o'clock with this applesauce. Although, Justin and Annie, I'm working currently at 11:56 PM editing this vlog. Just saying. And now back to your regularly scheduled program. What's going on? I failed! Well, I can't just rush. I'm on a bank here. You're getting in the water. Good job. Hard to film in here. Did you bring a lighter? Yep, I always have one. I always have one in my apron, bro. With gloves, adjustable wrench. That's from this morning. Gloves, nuts, washers. We got to do what's in Justin's apron every once in a while. This is for our supplies for fixing this. Lighter, sheath, hoof trimmers, tweezers. Oh, those are mine!

I found those.

Okay, well, why do I have them? You know, hey, maybe these happy times are just a symptom of feeling good. I feel great right now. Maybe it's the great weather. I'm hoping I'm choosing happiness and I can last longer this time. Whoa, slow down! Let's go see if water's coming down the mountain all the way to us yet. Nothing yet.

I haven't twisted it yet.

Hey, all right, shut it up! Wow, it beat us down here. Water's coming out. Of course it's coming out in the wrong place. Let's get this up and starting to fill up.

Oh yeah, steady flow.

Oh yeah, pull it on up here. I should probably have to help you. You have to— all right, you got it. We actually might be bringing water in faster than it can come out. Let's get the fence out from the creek. Guess what? Your Back to the Future energy helped me remember to show you this. See, they're eroding this bank. Problem number one. Problem number two, I haven't gotten too bad yet. Oh, there's some— there's poop there, there, and there's actually some poop right in the creek. Oh, there's some poop right there. They could drink some poop water. I mean, it's flowing. I'm not too crazy worried about it, but I'm happy to get them out of the creek. There you guys go. Fresh water, banks protected. Another thing, all their manure is congregating over there. We don't want that. We want your manure on this pasture, y'all, not on the creek banks. We've gotten rid of two of our rock piles, going into our third. This little track loader, it's the little track loader that could. He just goes, he puts on an audiobook, goes for it. Oh yeah. All right, heck yeah, he's gonna go 40 more minutes. Look at this, we have built up land. The boys have built up land where there was none. Proud of these stinkers. Now that I'm looking at it, I think that's going to be a probably a perfect amount of material, or a hair short, because they're bringing it way out here and cutting back through there. That's a lot of material. Look at you! What are you doing, boy? Cleaning the truck. Couldn't think of anything else to do. Nice. Looks nice. I got a little chuck roast going for tonight. I want you to see this though. We got a guest coming. It's a hurry up Disney on Ice. Clean it up. Let's show them how you're working. Even the boys, even the little boys helping. That old lady broth, first time using canned chicken broth. I'm a little nervous. That's still well. Wouldn't I be disgusted if it was bad? Smell that. Hey, Daddy! That smells good. We just murdered lunch. Our guest is here. I have about 10 minutes till a phone call and office hours. Let's see if we can't find our guest. If we have time, we'll go see what Jonah's doing at the cabin. They're wrapping up a specific Project. Hey, how's he doing? When you stand up, see if you can rub his stomach. Hey, does he act funny when he's in the pole barn? He's just fine. He's been acting different since we got on vacation. Uh, we've got a vet scheduled for next week just to make sure everything's okay. Kelly, Brother, hey! Better Together Life.

A Better Together Homestead now. That's what it's called now?

Yep. You left your homestead to just come to another one?

Yeah, and see all the babies. So there's like always several tiers. So Beau's at home with all 5 kiddos. I know, sweetie.

5? What's up with everybody having 5 babies? Becky, you're gonna be ready to jump. I'm ready to jump.

Becky, you were good for a sec. I know, the lambs are preferable.

Why isn't that shocking him? It's not. Okay, watch out. Here we go, we're turning it on. Oh baby, no, no, don't let them get snapped. She's gotta learn sometime.

Well, they work. You're like, they don't squeal, Kelly, they're so big. There was some that didn't, but I didn't test them out. But when I picked him up, he didn't squeal. You may recognize Kelly from converting a shed into a house that's now about to get expanded, so we have more home to our shed to home.

Because it was fun when your 5 kids were little.

And now they're all just half of them are taller than me. So we have a predicament. In order not to raise hunched over children, hunchbacks, we're growing the homestead and the— we're also building a barn and we're getting another milk cow this next week as soon as I get home from here.

You're gonna bring some of that Texas grit to this, uh, North Carolinian hillbilly trying to recover from hurricane.

I think y'all have got grit and a half. That's what I'll say. Like, just walking around, just like, you come from hurricane country. Yeah, but there— this is rare. This is extraordinary. Yeah, in the worst way.

It's that because it is rare and it just doesn't happen here. And so the land is not made for it.

But it is. It's— I was telling Rebecca, I was like, you have to have to sit here and see what's happened. You have to have like vision and hope and like experience of success. Because if this is your first rodeo dealing with tragedy, yeah, it's going to consume you. But it's cool. Like, even where the bank is already, you guys have graded that. That's just like, yeah, it's just what's to come. It's very cool, but it's hard to see.

Shall we see how's, how's it going in the guest house? Juno's future home. Oh, they're grinding. Doesn't that look good? Before, after. I'm just vlogging. Y'all are good. You always want Austin to be here with you to work on this. Y'all can't even talk.

It gets done twice as fast.

He's just grinding away. That's the best kind of friendship. Yeah, yeah, because when you're done, he's done. Yeah, get a little in your hair. Whoa, don't back up too far, bro. You know, it would really suck to fall. Yeah, it would. You'll have stories on every wall in here. Yeah, right. You'll tell your kids, hey, respect, I grinded these logs. You got to knock it out today because this has got to get cleaned out tomorrow so Randolph can finish putting down the floor. Open ceiling, that's the south side. We're gonna be opening that up majorly. Windows, windows up top in the gable. Sun, uh, what do you call this? Sunroof? Sun— that's the word I'm looking for. Skylight. There you go, I saved you having to put that in later in the edit. Skylight. I sure wish my dad, who's late, my late father, uh, could see it. He had that built in the '80s. Grandpa had that barn built in the '30s. He bought the old farmhouse, it was already here. That farmhouse is probably 100 years old. My dad built that in the mid-'90s, but it's nothing like it is now, so I rebuilt it in the '20s. What in the world would Jonah, Josiah, Lily, Gideon, Henry— what in What would their contribution be? I can't wait to see it. It's neat when you're on family property like that, legacy property, because you build on each other. It's really neat, and we're all connected. Like, I'm connected to my— they're communing with my— Jonah's communing with his late grandfather right now as he works on that cabin. That's special. That's special. You just can't buy that, and it's not worth anything to sell it. I didn't mean it's not worth anything. I mean, it's like It's not worth any amount of money to sell it. That's what I meant. That's what I meant. It's priceless. Ladies' retreat coming right up.

Ladies' retreat!

I know, right?

We deserve it. We deserve it.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Lily will be taking good care of us here. Tonight she's made green beans, baked potatoes. How'd the roast turn out?

Good.

Spectacular.

We're gonna go eat Chipotle on Saturday for lunch.

No.

We're not eating Chipotle.

Unfortunately, it's our last straw. It's our last straw. We quit Chick-fil-A probably 10 years ago. Our only cheat was Chipotle. But it's cooked in seed oils. So maybe a little is okay, right? Because we basically never eat any of that stuff. Can I take a bath? You want to take a bath?

Yeah.

After supper, y'all take a bath. Maybe I'll just let the kids go for it. I don't think I want it. You guys like Chipotle? Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, we'll figure it out. See you next week. We don't post on Friday and Saturday. Thanks for joining us this week. We love you and appreciate you. Happy day.