Balancing Act

Happy burn day! We got our ground debris piled up. It's an unbelievable amount from Hurricane Helene. It's time to burn it. Y'all want to burn it before you get started milking? I guess I'm on my own then. Any more babies? No more babies. We'll get some gas and have like 2 gallons on it and then it should light up. I got some trash and a hay bale. Light that good. You know, Boots wouldn't do gas probably just because it costs— the gallon's $6. Feel anything? You better. She's only giving like a quart of milk. Well, the calf might be sleeping. She better be almost giving birth. All right, can you guys get them some— which— whoever drives the track loader today, can you get the bucket on it and give them some, uh, wood chips? Boys, they got their new weight set. Hey boys! Muscle man! I like it. Yeah! Kids off vision in the house, not a good sign. Boys! Let's go! With the gas, we didn't have to use potatoes. We got a fire deep in there. I think we're lit. We got it. We want to stoke it in about an hour. Hopefully this is a quick jaunt. We're balancing some things this morning. Need to castrate the pigs. You coming with? Yeah. Okay, we're gonna castrate the piglets. Did you put your feet on right? I think we have a routine. I go out and do chores in the morning. Gideon kind of babysits Henry, kind of. And then you guys come with me while I bait at breakfast. Antiseptic, alcohol wipes, knife, scaffold. We need something for the piglets to be in, just an old bin or something like that. They're not very big. That's why we're doing it now. This could work. It's important that we castrate so that these males, well, they don't breed their sisters at 6 months old. We don't harvest them until 8 or 10. And there's also something you can get called boar taint. Some people taste it, some people don't. There's a percent that you may not get 14. We're not going to take that risk. We're going to castrate these piglets. Check our fire first. I need Josiah to come out as soon as he's done with breakfast and stoke this thing. Oh wow, really hot. It's hot. You can barely get close. I think we need to let it die down more before we stoke it, but we have got to stay on top of it. Our tendency in the past is not to stoke it, and then of course we don't get burned some of the bigger stuff. Double that. What are we gonna do? All right, let's go castrate these piglets. The pig— the big pigs are hungry. Trick is keeping Mama away from the piglets while we do this, and they're screaming crazy. That's a decent help, but castrating piglets might be better with a little bit more help. Let's see if anybody on the farm wants to do it. Okay, Mom said she'll come after she dries her hair. Uh, maybe. I laugh because, uh, hopefully I'll have it done by then. We'll wait to hear from Austin. He's generally a good sport, especially about this kind of thing. Come back for the camera. Told you Austin just dinged. He's coming. Of course we could have done it, huh? We could have done it. I figured Austin might want the experience. Beautiful one night. Appreciate being here. This definitely works better with a camera. Try to get this gate on while Mama's lying down. We'll open up the gate, we'll feed her, and then we'll get out there, shut this. She can't get in there. We'll catch the piglets. I knew you wouldn't miss this. I figured you might want to see this. This comes on this side. We're going to try to— this is on, it's on, it's on. We're gonna try to put that on while she's nestled with her piglets. Okay, I see she's knocking over a feeder, even whether it's full or not. Okay, so far so good. All right, we have all the supplies here. Here's the plan. She's— oh, oh, hold her, hold her in. Now, uh, Austin. All right, okay, everybody go in. Now y'all have to kind of catch them against that corner. Don't let them run out this way because they can get out. Yeah, yeah, y'all stay back. Let's get the females out and put them out with mom. I'm thinking I'd like some more secure protection from Mom. Yeah, this went from just me, Gideon, and Henry to party. Here's your treat. Watch them fight over those textas. Of course we can't show you all that on YouTube. It's against their community policies. You can check out the uncensored version on Abundance Plus. It'll be the same title of this vlog plus the word uncensored in it. Can I please drive? Sure, let's go unload all this stuff. Put everything back.

It's not working.

The Everflow is not working? No. Okay. I was afraid of that. We might have opened it up too much. All right, I was hoping to check on the fire. They're stoking it. That's gonna have to wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go off that edge. This could be bad. Gotta have water to the animal. Here. Uh, I don't hear it. Shoot. Let's shut this down. And there it comes. No. All right.

Yeah, yeah, that was off. This was off.

Oh well, that'll do it. Now how'd they drink so much water? Well, that's how. They knocked the valve off. It's not coming actually. Why is that? Oh. They knocked that off too. Your back is the hand that feeds you. Full blast till it fills up, and hopefully I remember— summon your Back to the Future energies for me to come back here and throttle it back without turning the whole hose off completely. Yeah, it's not going to fill if the water's not running into it. We're on it, bud. He's cleaning up around it. He's stoking it. Jonah's cleaning up the field. Was it getting hot?

Yeah.

Is there an emergency exit? Yeah, behind you. There's this window, there's that window, and then what's that? That red lever, is that an emergency? Yeah, it says alternative exit, use tool to break window. It's like something crazy happens up here front, something could catch on fire or something. Tell them what's going on.

We've been acting weird like He's been pinning his ears when I touch him. He has been a little bit better though.

I know, it's like we lined you up last week and he's kind of snapping out of it. What's your name and what's your practice?

I'm Sean Williamson and we're Asheville League 1.

Okay. Take a look at you here, huh? Yeah, he's not acting up right now. Hey! Did you say he looks good? Yeah, his weight looks good.

Pretty well muscled ponies especially. We do worry about sugar. Yeah, he doesn't look like the typical metabolic pony that has trouble processing sugar. Okay, he's not really overweight, he doesn't have big fat pads.

Usually it's pain. So is it like musculoskeletal pain?

We see some of these horses that when you start touching and brushing and grooming, they think they're about to get ridden and they start saying— they anticipate, hey, my back hurts, and you're gonna get on me a ride. This is the anticipation of it coming, and I'm okay, not happy about it.

Also really common, especially with like an abrupt change, might be stomach ulcers.

I would do maybe a course of, uh, anti-inflammatories or pain meds.

Well, it was a slow burn. We'll go at it again tomorrow. I can't burn past 4. See what Jonah's up to. Oh, you're excited about this job. What you doing? Putting these braces on so the roof will stay on. That's a power drill? No, she put the nail in and hammers it. Oh, it's a nail? You can get in tight places. Yeah. Bracing every single one, huh? Yep. Big Daddy must have ordered this. Sure. Sweet potato. Something got that one. How was errands today, babe?

I was exhausted.

How was your weekend trip? I like to stay home.

I've decided I just like to be at home.

Did you guys go anywhere on your weekend?

No, girl, we literally went there and we— our cars stayed in the parked position the entire weekend.

So I've been dying to ask, do you ever run out of anything to say? No.

If I didn't have anything to say, other people did.

You got it going again, huh?

Oh yeah.

There was not a quiet moment.

No, there was no quiet—

6 ladies and no quiet moments.

You know, in the middle of the night when we finally went to sleep, there was some quiet time, but other than that we were having fun.

I got the sweet potatoes going. I'm gonna try— okay, I think I— I think I did too much tomato sauce last time and it had this like— Broiling effect. I want more of a frying effect. Just do less tomato sauce. Trick is timing this. Okay, so having it be done when these sweet potatoes are done. I don't want to do too much tomato sauce. Now put, put salt on it and then put tomato on the burger. I guess we're doing all the can. I guess we're gonna do a lot of sauce again. Now you have to take some from this, put it on that. See, it starts getting liquidy.

Yeah, at the point, so then— Stop it.

You think?

Yeah, I think you're right about it.