Broke the Cows Leg!? Moving the PigPort & Pole Barn Hurricane Repair

Hey boys! Oh my gosh, wait a minute, got back in the bed?

I just did.

Oh, come on, you guys were up and at 'em. Okay, we're gonna have to— we're gonna move He-Man out and we're gonna milk the cows in the deep bedding so that we can milk Honey in the stanchion. Your face right now, because we have to treat her. And I need you to go get the squeeze bar off the milk sled because we got some medicine coming. We need to get her used to this. Happy day! Thank you for joining us for our daily life on our homestead. Today we're treating the cow. We're treating the cow just in case it's mastitis. We're going to put her in the stanchion and I think add a— well, I know, add a squeeze bar. They're upset. You can't get back over here with Papa Pig. That was an easy fix. I put a barrier between them. It was all well and good them getting over here until it wasn't. Somebody got sat on. Now it might not have been Beefcake, it could have very well been the mama. When you have an animal like a pig who gives a lot of babies they're less careful with their offspring and can sometimes squash them. Even at this, I don't know, 5, 6-week-old stage, and it was a bigger one than this. It was like this guy. So 3, 4, 5, 6. 6 survived. I thought we were in the clear. Just in case it was Beefcake, he's not going to be as sensitive as the mom, so put a berry between them. This brings me to my impossible project for for the day— for this morning. Let's move this pig port out. These, these pigs are done tilling the garden, okay? We're just compacting it at this point. Let's get it to the side of the garden over there. And here's the impossible part— that's not so impossible, I don't think, you know, moving this. I've made it so this pig port can move. Getting them a little outdoor run so they have a little more room. 30 square feet might be fine for just big, you know, beefcake. But I'd hate to see the mom and the little pigs in only that much space. Talk about getting squashed. I know Lucky's not starting right now. I'm pretty sure Lucky's battery's dead. Actually, Sally's side-by-side might move this thing. She might be heavy enough. We gotta move the pig port, uh, and we gotta make sure we have the fencing add on to this so they can have a little bit of an outdoor run, giving them some extra space. We've been filling in after Hurricane Helene around this pole barn.

We have a problem.

We want to fill in under there You can push material under there with this machine?

Not really, and it's not enough.

What about the Mini X? Could the Mini X scoop it under? Not really.

I tried.

Now here's my thought about having— not having enough. It'll take all that, plus we'd need some more to probably fill this in. So just hear me out. What if we extended the sum, or do we even have to extend that at all? Is that enough for chickens on a compost pile? I think it's close. Well, let's hear out this idea because we are running low on material. We graded this down as a road. It could even be a little further over so you could extend if you want more room up here, and if you have the material. This came down, it's a road behind our pole barn. We're building back better. We didn't have that before and we sometimes wanted it. I don't know if a road We'll be able to come to this side of this post. You boys even had the idea, you know, here's the temptation. We got to put it back. We got to put it back the way it was. No, you don't. Like, we did have concrete all the way out here, and maybe one day we will, but for now, can we just fill that in and let it settle over time and then fill it in some more? I think over time we might concrete this corner. Because it's under the shed, but maybe we don't have to. Maybe it could be rock. The reason we have concrete is easy to scoop out bedding. We're not going to have bedding right here. He could come and kind of dump it down in there. Could he? Could he come and twist, or is this too— does he need to pack it down first? You might be able to come and twist and dump material down in there. Let's fill this in and then see where we're at with the remaining material. Let's use what we have with the rocks and then see what we need after that. And we could probably get some soil from across the creek. We came to the compromise. Boys said, well, let us at least milk honey— I mean vanilla— on the pavement. The reason I wanted to milk them both at once, because he would be out here trying to get in there with us. He doesn't want to do that. He's going to be right here trying to get over here to where we milked them, and there's some spilled alfalfa. They're already out. I, I went to get a battery for this camera and they already broke out. It didn't even help that the fence was on. There's a chance that fence was connected wrong. I didn't check it, I just assumed. Let's make sure we get that Jonah's getting the sheep barn. Now they've run off. No doubt we'll end up in Mom's garden. It's Mom's garden and my cows when the cows get into it. They're feeling good. 35 degrees. Come on, going around to the garden. You're acting a fool. Okay, they're acting so crazy. I'm gonna have to risk them getting in the garden and me coming and setting this up better. So it will— they're kind of, they're kind of frisky. I'm gonna set it up down here so they'll come in and not just go right past it. No use hurting them while they're excited, so excitable. I got that part of the net set up there. Over there, they're gonna come down through here. We want them to turn in there. It's a different routine for him. Oh my, very different. I hear the fence clicking this time. Okay, once you get her squeezed, let's take the food away. She got crazy. She reached her foot through here, it got caught down in there, and now she's limping on it. She's starting to put some weight on it. Hopefully she's not hurt. Tomorrow level it. Yeah, we could put something here, but this moves.

How you gonna—

let's go allow that to move. It'll just go right along here. Put a guard there. I got him, honey. This is bad.

Or she could just have a man.

They're like cows, right? You gotta— or horses. If they hurt their— break their leg, you got to kill them, right? She can get out. Meanwhile, he's, he's testing the fence. Hey, he's in. Never seen a cow get go crazy in a stanchion, especially somebody as calm as she is. Expect this out of Flossie. Brock says if it's just a sprain, it can heal. Cows are tough but not invincible. If it's broken, it won't heal on its own. It's a good sign that she was still— she was gonna eat. Should we put the food on there since she's—

no, she's—

she—

her blood— she can't survive with her body up higher than her head.

Could we make this less of an incline for her right now?

I might stress her out.

You'd have to get it out from her back feet. Let's go, let's get it. It's up here, it's up here. Come on, she's wanting to. Should we give her a little pressure? Yeah, she's She's standing on it. Come on, honey. All right, she's stepping on it. Okay, good God, I'm so happy.

I think she sprained it, but okay, here you go, honey.

Come on. Think she's gonna be okay, but I don't think we're in the clear yet. We gotta see that heel. Over time and not be level and not get worse. Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go! Having her buddies in there will force her to keep moving. She's moving, she's moving just fine.

Not even lifting. What's the cow dance? I don't know what the cow dance is. What's that?

That's the happy cow dance. That could have been turning her into hamburger. We might not have enough material to fill all this in right here, so we were thinking, can you start filling material under the concrete as a first priority? You think it's possible, or are you going to slide off the bank? I'm going to try it up here where you have a lot of room. Uh, he can't bury that, that line right there. How is he going to get material under there? He's going to have to come right here. This thing has a zero turn. There's plenty there, but you you don't want to— you don't want to back off. There's plenty of room there, but you want to be careful to not back off of it. I feel like we should have already done this. We should have already, when it was low, pushed it under there. You only push it so far with this sticking out so far. I don't feel really good about that. That's not a real good turnaround for this thing. I think rocks were getting all up in the track. I think the Mini X might be able to push it over with the bucket. Uh, back out, don't turn around. He said, why don't we just get a concrete saw? Yeah, well, we don't want to saw concrete saw with our animals right there and our hay right there. You think it would be hard to get the Mini X and push material into there? It wouldn't work.

Bring dirt in, put dirt down, compact it with the machine, and then put gravel down and lay concrete.

And we may not want to put rocks there anyway, huh? Because it's going to sink so much, we might just want to put dirt. Like, we don't even need to cut this section, do we? All right, you want—

you can get in there and give it a go.

Okay, so we can't cut it until the animals are out. Hey, after this side finishes this, yeah.

He's going to put like 6 inches of dirt on the top.

Okay.

So that it can grow grass. Now, is this normal how high this is?

Could the machine— it's, it's pushing a little bit, but I think it'll be okay. We'll have to sow that bank. Push material over there. Could you guys humor me and just see if they could? I'm nervous for you coming at that side though in case it'd slide. Could you pull that up from this side?

Well, our sledgehammer or our jackhammer not go through this, but if we got one that attached to the Mini X or the skid steer, we could come along through here and just do it really quick.

Have you tried it?

No, but I just know it'll work with our, with our jackhammer.

No, if you want to go grab it, one option is to try the jackhammer. Probably gonna be too tough like you guys said, but might be worth it. Well, another option, one, uh, one option is you get here with the machine and try push it over there with your bucket. Is that bad to push, push it that way?

You can't, it's not strong enough.

Okay, cuz you're not going to be able to push it front ways, you're going to have to push it sideways.

And that's— drives an excavator wants that to happen so bad, I promise.

They want it to? Yes. And it just won't.

Everybody can relate to that.

Are you sure? Are you just trying to get out of something today?

No, no, I try to push stuff all the time, it doesn't really work.

All right, other option is to get a, a, a concrete saw. We have to wait till the animals and hay leave. Where would we put— well, then we would just put dirt under it here. In case— in that case, I guess in the meantime just keep building that area up. It's too much to turn around for you to turn around on this. Thanks for giving it a try, humoring me. We might want to fill that in with soil anyway because these rocks are just going to settle with rain and over time. You're not going to be a good foundation. I wanted to be moving those pigs, but I think I'm adjusting my new role on the farm. Everybody's kind of doing their own thing, which is good, it's more productive, but it means I need to stay on top of that and manage that in a way and keep everybody going, so to speak. That means we need to see if this jackhammer thing will work. We're at a point where that will kind of dictate what they do next. Hey, Randolph, it's out there in the trailer. All right, you need it? Yeah, is that okay? Yeah. Oh yeah, it'll bust that. Oh well, I'm gonna try it as opposed to renting a saw. It's yours, I just take good care of it. Okay, I know, right? All right, wish us luck. This will save us a lot of money. Jonah's telling me to rent one for the Mini X. Well, I'm gonna see how this does. Just thought Randolph thought this would work. Yeah, Cameron. Jesse says he can't get the hatch up. You got to get fuel. 20 minutes later. Jonah welded a tip on it and it might be too big.

Affinity because it's homemade and not manufactured.

Okay, we got it. Thanks. Push down and up. Hey, no shame, no shame. We're all getting work done. We're all on the same team. Gotta love just trying to fix things ourselves, become more self-reliant. Finding out one of three times it's just some sort of tweak like that, something we're doing wrong. Build a little side rail doing this, uh, pounding project. But that's not the case, actually. You know, if you think about it, our word for the year is recovery. Okay, what we're doing there with these gardens and those pigs is expanding. We're expanding the garden. I mean, it's part of our recovery because now we're gonna grow our own food and become less dependent on the grocery store, therefore out— get further out of debt. But This is more directly recovery. This works, this could save us a lot of money. And Jonas says it's not so dusty, so it would save us from having— getting dust on our hay, getting dust in our animals, getting dust in our lungs. It's no magic potion. Been able to chip off a little bit, but not much. I don't know if that's the tool for the job. It's not cutting it. Kind of chunk away at the edge, but that'd be a lot of edge to take off. Hey, are you gonna tease me? Now then, push that in there. Once you paddle it over there, then just push it in. I was hoping that would work, and it was worth the shot, but this thing's moving. Oh, there's a chidler in there. You're having the time of your life.

Split and split like it is the wreck.

I'm looking in the crack. Can you make it? That's a boy. Is it scary in there? Guess we'll have to get a concrete saw when the animals and the hay get out of there. We need T-posts for this, uh, pig port run. Gotta get the pigs out of there. They've established our garden extension. Nice to have a word for the year and filter everything through it and prioritize everything accordingly. Like, we're going to prioritize building back because our word is recover. We're going to go for this garden, and hopefully we can— pretty sure we can. But other things, the recovery is going to take the priority. You want to help me? Okay, let's go to Salmon and get some pig pork. You want to help me in your Jeep? Okay, here you go. Okay, take it, take it around the greenhouse to the pig port. Okay, he's helping. You run into the bank.

Okay, here you go.

Stay off the bank. Can you pick it out? It's heavy. Look at this helper. I like it. So we're gonna move the pig port. We're gonna swing wide. And then bring it straight right here. We gotta hurry and make sure they have a run. Jonah asked, how are we gonna do the run? Good question. Uh, 6 feet. Oh, 6 feet out, 10 feet over, and then 6 feet back. And you want to know why we're not doing the net is because we got to do deep bedding, so we don't want this to happen— wetness that they just stand in a day in and day that they can get at. We're gonna go to Sally and get some panels real quick. Okay, well, you have to ride in Sally because we have to cross the creek. Come on, we gotta go in Sally or Salma. Save your battery for your friends.

Yeah, you know, here we can douse it and then they can wind it.

Yeah, you better let it charge. You better get off of it. I was on a roll. I was about to do the pig project. But this is important. I think I'll just have— just, I fix it after a snack. You want to— well, what should we do? Let's just have him fix it after a snack and we'll go to the pigs. Don't lose those PVC pieces.

They won't wash away.

It's okay if a little water leaks into this stuff. There's nothing here.

Well, we don't want it to come apart. We're sticking with our motto: prioritizing the recovery. Is that— you think you can get material under there now without moving it too much? Okay, let me put this plumbing stuff back. We'll go to Rich Mullins. Leave your machine.

Okay.

Yes, save the juice for your friends. Kind of like those cows. There's not much delayed gratification there. Are you not going with us? Come on, I thought you were gonna park this for your friends. We got an hour and 15 minutes. Can we do this? Yeah, I'm confused. Did he not see them? All right, let's go see what we got. Okay, there's a bunch of pig port— there's a bunch of pig panels underneath, but are they— do we have one 10 foot long? I guess it doesn't have to be. We can put poles between. Now, are those even 6 feet long? We'll have T-posts every 3. We might not even have to cut anything, we'll just overlap things. Let's get some feed on the way there. We could put Beefcake here. It'd probably be easier just to— will you go turn off our net? It'll probably put him back in his old— well, no, we can't put him in his old lot because we're gonna have to swing it out that way. Whoa, she gonna get you! Wow, let's get his net up and put him in here. I'm gonna get Beefcake in a temporary paddock right here. Beefcake's shy for some reason. Yeah, if it doesn't pull it, Jonah, we're gonna have to get the tractor, which doesn't start. Don't get it back in the shed. There's more to it than, than we expected and thought. The reason we call it an impossible goal. All right, then we gotta put it all back together. Feed, waters, gates.

Go get the side-by-side ready to pull.

Gonna need to go wide as he can. This doesn't— this, this part needs wide turns. I love this pit part. Pick wherever you want. Piglets keep testing it. They're not happy. They don't have their shelter. They're seeing this. They're wanting in it. Do all but one side. Okay, we're doing pig panel run. We won't even need electricity. We have to have a T-post at this joint. We got a shooter. Catch the action. You gotta be nice to me now, John. Other cameras rolling all of a time. But I set up this net to here.

No, they don't hurt.

Thanks, thanks for humoring me, behaving while the camera's rolling. We can have a, uh, we can have a lean-to shed over this to protect check the outdoor wood chips eventually. Jonah, they think we're pro swine herds. Open this like this, and then he's kind of trapped in here. Give him a physical barrier.

He's going to consist of lid.

Wait till he lifts up his head to grab the thing so I don't get bit.

We'll take it. Woo!

All right, it feels good when you get pigs in the new place. It's getting quite overwhelmed doing that. Maybe that's why I avoided this for a while. But you know, once we got through that initial push, things started going really well, and things went extremely well. It was key to put these nets up to herd them in, and oh, they're just happy. They're just rolling in the grass. They're just sunbathing. Now don't think we're gonna keep that. We're not. We're gonna tomorrow let them eat the grass today, and then before they're living in their own poop, we're gonna wood chip this. See, mom's already pooped. That would be very nasty, guys. So we're gonna wood chip this. Lunch is being heated up. We need— we have to get them water, so no matter what. So let's get them water. If we have any time left over, we'll start cleaning up. What a blessing. Josiah was helping me this morning, now Josiah I mean, Jonah was helping me this morning. Hey, supervisor's here! Hey Freddie, I'm feeling good out here. Must be the sun. You coming to check out the pigs? I am coming to check out it all. Nothing like pigs on— or any animal on new grass. They're trying to bury in the dirt, aren't they? Look at this one's butt, getting that butt cooled off. So you think we've bitten off more than we can chew with this garden? No, it's a lot of gardens inside that high tunnel. From here back, from here back. But Josiah, I've done this whole field before pretty much by myself. Ladies, if you want to get your spouse on board homesteading, start it, get— sell some of the produce from it before it's done, you know, like sell the produce beforehand, then get pregnant and sick. I like how one time Justin said, don't you get pregnant. I don't think that it's just me involved in that process. Look, I know it takes two to tango. Feels so good to have accomplished that. Feels good out here in the weather. That pig port, I am very pleased. It moved very well with a divider in the middle and extending a run on the two sides. It's incredible. Now it's further away from the house. Let's do one lean-to concept too. We can put a lean-to over the piglets so that bedding outside can stay dry. We can put a lean-to on the other side to cover our wood chips, and on the third side, um, the feed. Let's haul the probably 1,500 pounds left out there to them so we're not trucking it out there on a wagon every day. Let me be free.