Believe It or Not, I’m Getting Ready for 9 SHEEP!

Gideon, you ready? Okay, let's go. Big day. Gigantic day. Getting ready for sheep. Leaving on Wednesday. Today's Sunday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. 3 days to get ready. Oh, I forgot my apron. Oh, wrong shoe. I mean foot.

Papa, can you ride me on your back?

He's asking for the Ergo. Am I really gonna do this? Am I really gonna do this, Gideon? I mean, it could be the last time. It may have to be the last time, Gideon. This may have to be the last time. Okay, I guess we're really doing this. How about for just a little bit?

We have to buy ourselves a new one. What does it weigh? All your pound needs.

You know, it's not that, Gideon. You're heavy. It's cold day. I think that's what it is. Fall is in the air. You need me to lift that for you? Did you feel it? Did you get it this far? Yeah. Thanks.

Right now I want to go with you guys.

Okay. How's Donald doing in here, Lily, since his change? Good. He's doing great. We switched Donald to the kitchen garden posse because he doesn't have any pastured chicks. So there he is. And Penguin, how are you doing? You still penguin it up? I see you are. Check on the chicks. Doing great. Let's make this a little more palatable. I'm feeling saucy. Get rid of their dry grain. Can I put you down now, Mr. Brown? I know I'm about to break out of sweat. Maybe you're good and warm now. Good. You want to switch your shoes around? Might make it more comfortable. So let's switch this out with Soaked feed.

I already wanted it too.

You gonna help? Yes. A little easier for you guys to get the powder up, a little more digestible. Let's go get him some rooster teeth. Okay. Creek sand with its minerals, tiny makeup, is perfect for rooster teeth. Let's go move the ices. Slept 10 hours last night. It's good to get rested, but a little behind this morning. I've got 15 minutes to move those ICs before milking time. We got to keep these guys moving, stirring up cow poop. Luckily it's an easy move. I can keep one fence in place, just move this part of it, put it over there. It's 9:19. Can I do this in 11 minutes? Let's try. All I lack is the feed bucket and waterer. It's been 10 minutes. Gonna do this one 1 minute. All right, 9:30. Let them out, buddy. It's in aiming for the impossible that you get extraordinary stuff done.

You can go get a grill and I And I can wait here.

Thank you, but we're gonna have to bolt that. When we go to Lowe's, we're gonna have to get some bolts. Okay? Because we keep screwing it and the screws keep coming out. Come on, bud.

I have big plans today. Really big plans. The big plan is to clean this mess up. Darcy and her friend and her daughter are coming from the YouTube channel Darcy Isabella, and so I need to get this mess cleaned up so that they can stay in. In here. But last night I did not feel good. I did not sleep good. This morning I woke up kind of dizzy, almost like vertigo feeling. So I'm gonna do the stuff that I need to get done on the computer first while I rest. I'm feeling better. I, I slept in and then I took an Epsom salt bath. I also drank some apple cider vinegar water. With all that, I'm also taking Cell Salt They're just homeopathic cell salts, which there are specific ones for vertigo, dizziness, headaches, stuff like that. So— Whew, that made me dizzy. Um, so I'm gonna sit here and get some computer work done on the computer while I get better so that I can get to cleaning because I've got to clean that up.

Well, the cows aren't here. They must be way out in the field. Wanna hold hands? All right, we're at the end of the pasture. They in the forest? Maybe they're over this knoll. Haha, I see them! I see the bromance anyway. You see the bromance, Bear Stud? All right, I see them. You know who I don't see? Phyllis. She snuck off and had her calf. Where's Phyllis, guys? You know what time it is. Look, look at that. That's amazing. Okay, stay with me, Gideon. Um, I wish we could have put eyes on Phyllis. Jonah checked her this morning though, and there was— oh, there she is! Lord have mercy, you need to go eat. Did you just wake up? Okay, I want to see that you get out here and eat. Okay, come on, Mr. Brown. Maybe that'll stimulate her to come out and get some breakfast. I like it. You can look at that triangle right there. This is classic empty, meaning she just woke up and needs to eat some breakfast. Because let me show you Flossie's, who's been up. And eating. No triangle. See? It's full. Gotta look at the left side. Here. I guess that's the first stomach. Come on.

Y'all, I am so sad. I feel like junk. I felt so good. I felt so good the last months that like, this is really eye-opening to how bad I feel like, or how bad I felt. So, yeah. I'm gonna feel better though. I'm gonna feel better.

Good morning, beautiful one! Good morning. Not feeling too hot, huh?

Mm-mm.

What you working on?

I have a couple computer things to do, which are, well, I need to rent the truck.

For Missouri.

Yeah, and I'm gonna write out a calendar for this week so that we have it like posted somewhere.

Okay. But one thing Mom requested after doing the chores for a couple of days is a rigid feed pan for the pigs. So let's try that out. Oh yeah, oh yeah, why didn't I think of that? A while ago we got the chickens off this garden bed. It's covered. It's getting wormaged. We put them in here. This is going to be our compost corner. If you're going to have chickens in one spot a long time, give them a carbonaceous diaper, as Joel Salatin would say. Get them some carbon. It absorbs their manure. You also build compost, so might as well have them doing something, right? We're just going to throw over a few to get caught up. And then we'll add it as needed. And as they'll help break this wood chips down, manure it, at the bottom will begin to form compost. And look, look, here's again an example. Look at the bottom of this mulch pile. Look at that. Chickens speed up that process and we get that compost even sooner. Booyah!

Woo!

Something so right about that fresh smell. Pig port doesn't stink. Chicken run shouldn't stink either. Let's get them some deep mulch. If you're starting to have smell— smell on the farm is mismanagement. You need to either move the animals or give them a carbonaceous diaper. We've got all day, the rest of the day, to work on getting ready for these sheep.

Hi, is this low enough?

That probably is low enough. So first thing we're doing is trailer.

If it needs to be lower, we'll take a hay string just in case if we need to lower it.

Okay, good idea. Are you gonna be in charge of getting the hay string?

Get a high eye hook and hang it in there.

Okay, we could keep extra wood shavings in there. Put that on the list for their deep bedding. So I put, uh, food grade or drinking food grade buckets with lids for carrying water, getting water. Oh, they're gonna need like a water trough to drink out of. Put a lot of hay in there, 2 or 3 maybe.

One thing you don't want to do is run out of hay.

This is our dog crate for separating the ram. We've got to separate the ram until December to breed them for spring babies. Now, how to put this cage together. Okay, we were able to get it. Ram's going in here. You can't make people. Yeah, we don't want him to mate them. They're too young right now, and we want spring babies, not winter babies. Now, Jonah, he might be ambitious, so So let's go and support this a few with a few zip ties. My reasoning here is there's a door right here. We can open this door. They're, they're unhandled sheep. We're gonna have to train them. So we can open it like this. Uh-oh. Service it. Well, we're gonna have to open that door wide open. Maybe have something so that they can't run back. Pass this way, service the ram, and then show them the door up there. Josiah, the ewes can be serviced through this door. Show them, Josiah. Yeah, okay. So can we hang this? Can we hang the hay feeder over here, fellas? That's all we can do here. We gotta wait on our hay. We'll get some wood shavings for deep bedding.

We gotta install the door.

Trailer's ready.

We gotta install a door here.

Um, let's see what we have by way of cattle panels. That's not a bad idea if we make— well, shoot, there's going to be 5 ewes and 3, 3 weathers, so I don't know if that's going to be enough room for 8.

But we could—

that probably is. We'll see what we have by way of cattle panels.

Oh, we could put it—

let's put a cattle panel here if we're getting it.

That's not, that's not a bad idea.

Wait, couldn't we put a weather?

That's better. I like that idea. We could probably put a weather in there with him. We'll ask Greg. A wether, so that y'all know, is a castrated male. We're going to grow them up for meat, and then the ewes will breed, um, December-ish, have babies May in the spring-ish, and we'll raise those for a year and harvest them.

I want a girl lamb so I can milk it.

Okay. All right, we're raising these guys for meat. St. Croix breed, hair sheep. But I guess you could try to milk them. Maybe they're dual purpose.

The weather outside is so amazing. I have the window open while I was sitting on the couch. My friend just stopped by to talk for a moment, and then I gathered enough strength to come and tackle this hot mess that is our guest room. It's normally not this bad, y'all. It really isn't. Like, we normally keep this room really clean. Because, um, you just never know when you're gonna have a guest. So it's always good to— I'm gonna open the windows up in here, get it nice and fresh. It's always good just to keep it clean and available. But then when we did the kitchen right now, you know, had to put all that junk somewhere, right? So now get to working. Okay, so I did quite a bit, but I'm needing a break. Just feeling really lightheaded and stuff, so I'm gonna go ahead and lay down and rest and come back and finish it.

Oh my goodness, Jonah, they've already eaten all that grit.

I'm wondering if they're eating it because they don't like the grain.

Why wouldn't they like the grain?

Well, they haven't eaten hardly any of it, and that worries me.

Yeah, that's crazy. Why aren't they eating more of their food? This is the regular food everybody's been on.

It's because they don't like it. They don't like it wet.

Okay, well, let's do one dry and one wet. So look, I put a dry feeder in there and they're eating that. Holy moly, guys, something about it being wet they don't like. I've never seen that.

Feel this chick's crop.

Okay, so it's probably filled up with rocks.

You feel all those little grains? Yeah, there's rocks.

Yeah, she probably— he probably need— they probably— gosh. All right, let's get another dry run. Let's forget it, man. That experiment's over. Never in my life. Hmm, I wonder if it's because it's 69 degrees outside and this, this is cold and they're little chicks. Is it just 61? Okay, that's what sea monster feeding is supposed to look like. All right, once we get them off the trailer, we're gonna get them into a stall. This stall. But I have— this was wet wood chips from outside. I'm bringing them in under the shade, drying them off for deep bedding in here. Inside here we already got some deep bedding. We'll add some to it from out there. Let's get rid of this perch. Let's get rid of this old nesting box. Jason, our carpenter, he's gonna come help us. See that little bit of light? That's good. But how about a 3-foot by 7 window? Okay, right there. Let's flip this to help dry it out some more. Yep. Our stall is ready. We've, we've managed it out here. Need to string trim or scythe that, get some field dirt, fill in our little pond there. Let's get the ram's quarters set up. The pigs are getting a new neighbor, I think. I mean, we're gonna run it by Greg, but this is our best bet, I think, for up her ram's— her ram's pen for right now. I'm kind of wondering if we're going to end up building a mobile pen, that way he can be on grass, get some fresh grass. But for now, with 3 days to go, let's just set up a deep bedding for him, okay? Okay. Is this all yours or is this all mine?

That's all yours.

All right, let's set this up. What are we gonna do in here, Jonah? We gotta— the squash is invading in here. We could just ignore it, but we're gonna need a path. The path's gonna go right here.

I don't see any plants.

Yeah, they need a little bit more, but I feel like we got enough squash. What do you think? So should we cut it, scythe it, or string trim it? Oh yeah, those are weird too. Those aren't real, that's just some hybrid. Okay, let's mow it. Do you want to let me string trim this real quick? And we'll put it up. Yay, we got a string trimmer round. Ran out of string in the string trimmer. Jonah's going to get it. Hey, you back? You gonna help?

We are running.

Yeah, right here.

Oh, we should put it right here.

You move the pig board for me. I think I'm gonna put the door— the door goes right there. Where'd the pig board get in? This goes right here. He's caught in the action making his deposit. Are they both peeing, man? You guys are really going at it. Great little deposit to this compost pile. That gets screwed in, the rest is just zip tied. We're gonna need a T-post there and here, so 2 T-posts. These are short. This one doesn't even have a— are you sure these are the ones?

I swear.

Probably shouldn't use such short ones.

This ram will be fun. It's not a pig. No, that doesn't go like that.

Oh, that's right.

You're right. That ram needs some space.

All right, there we go. String trimming a bit there, wrapping it up. Even with the guard, I got some crazy grass in my eye. Y'all see it? I can see it in the viewfinder. Oh boy, oh boy. Can you come get some grass out of my eye? See it?

Where does it hurt so bad?

I even had the mask on. Really?

It got so—

Should I just go dunk in water? You even have a popcorn stainless steel bowl. Oh, we don't even eat popcorn. It's so cold back here. You didn't need a cold plunge. Solar— polar plunge here?

Polar plunge, you're right. I figured it's better than anyone that's hot. Sorry. Oh, it is kind of cold here.

Yeah. Oh well.

Does it feel better?

Not really. Must have just cut it.

That's hard. It came out of your eye. It's not like the normal eye booger.

Oh yeah.

Because like a normal eye booger is soft and mushy.

This is bad. This is bad. Look how overgrown this is. Oh my gosh, we're having the minimalist— minimalist? Minimalist tour house, y'all. Darcy Isabella. Beauty's cleaning the house. Y'all ever know— y'all realize we live in a barn? I realize that she's cleaning the house. She can't be running through a trashy yard to get to a beautiful house. So I'm gonna put on some better eye protection. All right, Jonah's gonna wear that because he's got a smaller head. It's better, more protection for him than me. Oh my gosh, this is so woolly. 15 minutes, just did the first run on this.

Look at this. I totally forgot that I was filming this for you guys and I started cleaning up in the living room. Um, so I don't know if you know, but Darcy Isabella is a minimalist and I want to be a minimalist, but I'm not. So anyways, I felt like I wanted to like kind of get rid of some of the clutter that's around. So I've been doing that in the living room area. Now I'm gonna take a break and finish supper, which all I have to do is do the green beans because the chicken and the pumpkin casserole are already in the oven.

Well, you're gonna have to believe me, guys. It looks good under there. We still got a lot to do. Need to blow this off. Got around here, took a little bit down there. It's supper time. We've worked really hard today. A lot more to do tomorrow to continue to prep for the sheep. Let's get in there and enjoy a supper together. Won't you join us?

Chicken, obviously, and a pumpkin casserole and green beans and broth and Darcy dressing and fermented—

How fitting, Darcy, and she's coming tomorrow. Are you ready? Not like she's to judge, but I'll probably do some tomorrow as well.

I want to like clean that up and like the shelves, and then I got to finish her room too where she's staying in. Oh, it looks good! We got milk from the farm, and look at those goodies! This is your—

this is yours.

She did, but she thought she loved him more.

You want me to put them up for you? Huh? Right.

It is after dinner and I am feeling so much better, like so much better. Um, I was able to help clean up. Jonah came in here with me a little bit and we cleaned up the last— some of the last remaining junk that's in here. And I stripped the bed and I'm gonna go stick that in the washing machine. I still have stuff to do. I still have to go ahead and wipe everything down. I gotta get my desk looking better. I gotta deal with all this return stuff that I have. Want to vacuum and like really clean in here for them so that it's nice. I also need to get like the blow-up mattress set up because one of them will have to sleep on a blow-up mattress on the floor. So I want to get that like all set up so it's like all the time that they're here is spent talking and having fun and not setting up beds.