Broody Chicken ATTACKS

I jumped in. You can get wet.

Okay, so you're hijacking Lily's boots now. Here, sit down.

Put them on you.

There you go. Pink is punk. This morning I want to work on the forested pigs. We got to get them to a new paddock before we leave on Tuesday. Put that back, buddy. Jonah, we gotta find a better place for the—

okay.

The fishing poles. Uh, we do not have enough pig scraps for their feed, but look, we do have 15 gallons of skim milk. Now all of a sudden we have a lot of pig food. We figured out our little chicks, they're getting out of this net. I thought they were jumping up and getting on that and getting out, and they were, I think, in the beginning. Some— there are spots they're crawling down and getting through. We have had to special order plastic tent stakes. Didn't have them at the local sporting store that are like reasonably short and all plastic. You don't want metal because it would ground it out. Uh, don't let them out yet, okay? We want the big hens to have a head start. Only get this feed. The chicks have feed in their coop. You're gonna let them out now? Hopefully the rain holds off. It didn't hold off yesterday. It's hard to do a project like that, possible chainsaws and blade trimmers, if you— if it's raining. All right, you drop it.

What are you scared of? That mean chicken.

Glad to see they have a lot of dryness after the somewhat significant rain event. Don't climb on that. One of them have climbed on here and put a hole in our tarp. Gideon, not me.

Oh, it's a worm!

Nice. Check our compost pile while we're here. Guarantee it's heated up. I added a couple more loads. I'm gonna say 110. Oh, it's flying up, guys, and we're not even halfway filled this bin yet. 110. 110. Say that again. I don't think you'd have to butcher a worm. You just eat it like it is.

I don't know.

I think it's probably all edible if you actually wanted to eat it.

If we would find worms, we would not eat them. We would just go to the— those— yeah, the real foods.

Yep. You want to go to the forest pigs now?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, get your screw out now. You're— that looks good. It'll help aerate your soil here. He'll probably like this soil. You've got a watermelon coming on. And some carrots and some kale. And you got a squash coming on here. Hey, you got a volunteer squash right here. You're doing good.

Papa, when they get bigger, I'm gonna pick them.

Okay. Are you serious? Is that a tomato growing in the sidewalk? It's funny, those are so hard to germinate and start on your own, but there it is growing in my sidewalk. And then there it is growing all up next to my sidewalk. I said, how'd the goose get out? You can't see from here, but Donald's out. And then I realized those boys are moving those chicks on their own accord. Last Wednesday when we butchered, one reason we got done with 100 chickens butchering part by lunch, by 11:30. Come on, let's go see what the boys are doing. And completely finished by 4 o'clock.

Papa, how much chickens did I butcher?

You probably butchered 2.

No, I didn't.

So little Mr. Brown, 4 and a half years old, 2%. Papa, I did not.

I butchered more than 3.

Oh, well, maybe 3. Jonah probably butchered 20. He's coming in at 20%. Everybody helped. Lily, Gideon, Jonah, Josiah, Rebecca— they all literally helped, and that's the first time that ever happened. And boy, there's a reflection. And I think we're coming into a stage of our life where the children, you— they're like an investment. You give, give, give, give, give, and they need, need, need, need, need. But at some point it actually becomes even. They give as much as they take. And then we're noticing with Jonah and starting to with Josiah is that they actually give more than they take. It's absolutely amazing. They saw me coming and they said We want to do it by ourselves. I'll let you guys do it by yourselves. I just got to show everybody this. I'm so proud of you guys. Good job, guys. Donald's staying with them. Good. How you getting them over there? Oh, you're getting them to go under. Okay, good job. Proud of you guys. Very proud of you guys. This is where they were. You could see the manure. Oh, you got some have died. It doesn't look like they've been attacked though. You want to get up the dead ones, Gideon? Yeah, just in time to go feed the pigs. I'll get it. They look pretty— they look pretty nasty. Let me get them. Maybe we'll rinse them off since they probably have chicken poop all over them. Add it to the list of the weird things that have been in this minivan on this minivan farm. Actually, let's go turn the water on and make sure it's working out here. I've always had a hard time getting these females, females tight. I should probably use a tool. Oh wow, it's not spraying like crazy. Sometimes it pays just to try it again with a fresh new start. We've got water all the way to here. I can hear it from way down there. It is drizzling. That's not enough to stop us. Let's see what we're gonna have to do. But first, let's feed these guys. It's where the pigs have been. This is where they're going. I think we could get in here with the mower. Nothing major here. They're going to get in there and help us underbrush that, and then we can go in behind them and, and cut down some of these less desirable trees. Look over here though. Look what they've done here. Don't you see this beautiful— don't you see how beautiful this is going to be? I cannot wait to show you the end product of this. This stuff cut and mowed down, oh, and then grass start growing. Oh, looked like the boys have moved the sea monsters, no problem. Jonah, go inside, Mr. Brown, potty, and then come back out. Tell Jonah to come out to the bull barn. No. When in doubt, ask Jonah. He knows what's going on. Jonah! Jonah! Jonah! Is Jonah in here?

He's not. Not that I've seen him.

Your mom will help you get in. He's not in here. Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said, for every minute organizing, you save an hour of time. Yeah, I'm believing that right now. Looking for this chainsaw. Everything has a place and everything in its place. Let's move towards that one day at a time. There they are. Should I break it out on you? Should I break it out on you? Every day in every way I'm getting better. I'm not perfect. There's a rake out, there's a tarp out. There's a— what's that out? Hey, you guys emptying that? Yeah, that's a good move. You know, you're emptying your kayak and then what you gonna do with it?

Just go store it.

That's a good move. Okay, do you know where the chainsaw is?

Yeah.

Where?

Follow me.

I told you he would know. You got a pulse on this farm, don't you?

Yeah.

Should I tap into his pulse?

Well, I, I put it where— I put it where it is.

Oh yeah, look at this. You guys organized your fishing poles. Good deal. All right, show me the chainsaw, buddy.

And my chaps, um, they're up in the old barn hanging on one of the posts.

Okay, cool. All right, let's go tune it up and go. Okay, we have like 15 minutes, y'all. I think I can get the chainsawing done in 15 minutes. Who, who wants to haul brush as I cut it? And who wants to film me? Oh, it's working! Well, this thing came through in a pinch. We got all the sawing we needed to be done. It wasn't that bad. We can get through with the mower now. It's 9 o'clock though. We gotta milk. Maybe the rain holds up. If the rain stops, we could continue to work on this this afternoon. I'm actually pretty happy given the circumstances. We got that done despite the fact that our chains wouldn't work. It's pouring the rain back.

I know, it's crazy.

It's good though. It's like it's raining beef and milk. It's good for our pastures. Our pastures need it. I'm so happy about it. I see y'all did eat your hay, right? Let's get them some more because it could be another hour and a half till they get out to pasture. It's not y'all's favorite hay, but you did eat it. That's good. Come on, come on. Hey, and Nellie, are you still in heat? I'm gonna try to get you out today, okay? We'll have to see. We'll have to let her out and see if Stud Muffin— he's our test to see if she's still in heat. And if she is, we'll have to herd her back in. The only way we can tell is if— well, how the bull reacts around her.

Oh, he's moving.

What does that mean? He's like, you don't have the same appeal to me you did before. What's going on? He's interested in her because we just brought her out, but I kind of want him to grow disinterested. He's let her go out to the pasture. She feeling good. Let's just leave her in here for a couple hours so we can just keep my eye on her. If we put them in the next pasture, we won't be able to see. It looks like it's gonna clear up and maybe be a nice day. Let's get the cows over to their new pasture. We've checked on them frequently Sud Muffin is not interested anymore. That's good. Heads down, immediately grazing. That's what you want to see. Morning, Grandma.

Good morning.

You giving her some love?

Yes, a poor doggy. Poor wee doggy.

Boy, her head's right in that donut, isn't it?

Yeah. Yes, it is.

For those of you who don't know, Laurel has to be in a donut.

Come here.

Up. She cannot even go on a walk for 10 days. So she hooked her suture heels from her being spayed. There was some complications and it had come undone. What you doing?

Oh, what are you doing? I'm trying to get all this hair off of this because they wanted me to try to keep it clean. Okay. Okay. All right.

Here we go. She's getting really excited with all this attention.

I don't want to pull it because I'm afraid if I pull it, it will—

You need some real scissors.

I don't have any other scissors. Oh, there's the hospital.

Hold on, we got it. Hold on. Is that attached in there?

It's like, it's just hair that has wadded in there. Gotten attached to it because there was discharge, which they said is normal. That's good enough. Okay, I mean, it looks really great actually.

Yeah, good.

Good. Aren't you happy?

I've been editing today's vlog. Rebecca is— we've got a break in the weather here. Oh, she's out weeding. Just check on her while I take a quick break, stretch my legs a little bit, move about. There's so much we need to weed before we go. Arun's garden needs work. She's not in there. Good. Yeah, I think she might be down in the kids' garden. You've already raked? You've already hoed it?

Yep.

Our plan is we've cultivated this, what, 2 or 3 times?

Yeah.

Now we want to leave it alone, so we're going to undersow some cover crop and not cultivate it again. So be kind, have courage, treat yourself with dignity, walk tall, speak sweetly, be brave and Okay, I just came out here to get some shots of beauty and I just had to. But doesn't it look so much better? Look at this. 3 people string trimming. I have a soft spot in my heart for string trimming. Working up a little bit of sweat, a lot of power, and a lot of beauty when you're done. Look at this.

Yes!

Maybe this evening we can hit up Arun's garden. Yeah, and tomorrow Frosty.

Well, hopefully it won't be raining, and hopefully we won't be running around like chickens with our head cut off tomorrow.

Yes, it just all looks nice. Take it in before before we leave, Becky. Take it in, we're not gonna see it for a few days. I went back to editing, got a nice little time lapse for a good beat. That was fun. But today I think has been a day of distractions. It's 3:15, I'm still working on the vlog. I gotta keep Mr. Brown awake. How am I gonna keep you awake, Mr. Brown? Big coffee, Bulletproof coffee. And Mom says we're gonna treat ourselves to Bulletproof coffee. She's gonna treat herself to a juice. You guys gotta see these gigantic cucumbers.

Well, no, this is a zucchini.

I mean zucchini.

I got 2 zucchinis.

Yeah.

From the plant I almost killed.

I didn't kill it.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

And then one cucumber, but we are like, this week I'm gonna have to tell Meg to make sure she keeps checking my cucumbers and that they need to start eating them.

For sure.

I'm gonna be like, eat all the cucumbers that you can.

That's a perk of the farm sitter.

They get to eat anything. There's so much produce out there. Lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini. I mean, she's gonna have to pick it all.

All right, Mr. Brown, water's ready. That means you gotta grind.

Oh, I put it away.

Why? I didn't know there was coffee in it and everything.

I thought it was— I thought it was like— Mr.

Brown was been sleeping in, was up at 10:30 at night.

Are you ready?

But he's been taking naps, so we're gonna try to not do a nap, and then you'll go to bed right before 10:30. Hey, I think, I think we went to sleep before you. 4 minutes, okay, and then we'll make our mix.

Cheers! Cheers!

Little rain didn't deter them. Actually, this is probably a good reaction. I'm gonna let them actually run out and I'll never eat our homegrown roasted chicken. Dinner was so good. We got some very special visitors here— my family, my sister Kelly and her children. So my nephews, you guys ready to do this? You want to get the farm experience? You're ready for the farm experience, barefoot and all, right? Okay, what do you want to do? The moms— look, look, the moms are already on it. The moms are going to stay up here and weed Arun's garden. Pop, you're going to supervise? I'll keep the switch. Okay, he's got the switch. Okay, you got to keep moving. So you boys, do you want to go weed with the moms or go round up some cows and muck a stall? Okay, I could have guessed. How was it, cowboys?

Good.

Okay, good. Way to go. We need to get hay and water into the calf stall. I'll go dump the muck, okay?

So you could dump hay with Gavin.

You know, that wheelbarrow goes up so high, I think I could actually lower my plank a couple rungs. Let's try it. Let's try this with an empty wheelbarrow first. Okay, we got a bunch of anxious Tennessee boys. Come on. All right, look at them boys go. This is the workout. We don't need no gym.

Boom!

Have you guys got a load or what? Okay, guys, you did a good job cleaning this today. They want to show me their workshop. They've been working hard building a workshop.

All the hardware, the sanding table, metal boxes, and just all that stuff.

Nice, very good. I can see you guys getting— oh look, they've hung their chargers. Got your power tools, got your work table. This is legit, you can get some stuff done in here. Okay, the broody hen situation. Jonah, who's broody? Who's done? Who's broke? And who's not? You want to test?

All of them.

They're all broke. Okay, there's, uh, for you guys if you for them. So why don't you hand them out a chicken? You gotta undo the bottom. You guys hand them out to our guests, okay? You ever held a chicken, Gavin? Yes. Okay, good.

It was a long time ago though.

Okay, this one, um, all right, just keep it by the feathers there so you don't get slapped. Okay, give it to Ethan.

Very heavy.

Did you guys get rained out? Well, if you're not going to eat them, I will.

But if you eat them— we'll eat them, but we've got lots out there that are ready.

I can give you some. Yeah, okay.

Do you want a zucchini too? Here, you can take that carrot.

Our beets are ready.

Yeah, look at this. They're about that big.

They're perfect. I like them when they're just that size, and they'll get probably that large. Oh yeah, you like beets?

Here you go. Here's the A smaller zucchini.

Okay, that'll be good.

That one is an Italian zucchini. That's why it looks a little funny. Then here's a cucumber.

I saw that big one. We're gonna have to get him a bag. Justin said you would eat that big one too.

Oh yeah, they don't get— so these ones don't get, uh, weird like the other ones. They can get big and be fine and tasty. Okay, but if you just cut this up and put it in some butter, uh-huh, fry it up.

Oh, basically just put some butter in a pan and then chop all that up. Is that maybe the beet? Well, even the beets, you don't want me to put the beets in there?

Do you want me to rinse them off for you?

Uh, that'd be okay, I can do that.

All right, do you want any more lettuce? We got lots.

No, I just got enough for sandwich.

We got like, what was that, 25 feet? Is it 50 feet out there?

Oh, 50 feet. Yeah, lettuce galore.

It's crazy.

It's beautiful.

Trying to think of what else I got growing.

How'd it go putting any big hens out? What's wrong?

He got attacked. See, he got bit up here and around the hand right here.

The hens that you just introduced?

Look, see at the eyeball.

Oh my gosh, it looks like the birdie hens are after everybody.

Really? Yeah. Okay, there's one right there. There's one right there. Okay, put them in there and move it every day.

That's not a terrible idea. We do need to move it. There's still too many chickens in there not to let them out. Okay, so where'd she go? Is that her?

And there's that, and that one over there.

I want to see this. I don't want to leave and then you see that.

See, it's that one.

All right, we got a broody. Okay, is there anybody else?

Oh yes, a black one, but there's lots back in the back.

Okay, here she is. We've had a broody hen run a goose into these— this electric fence and kill it. I'm not about to let that happen again. Okay, this one's still broody. Jonah, will you put her back please?

Man, I don't want to be put by that rooster.

Is this the one that was attacking it?

Well, it's maybe— you see him?

All right, just get in. Josiah thought he found one. Okay, that's it.

Okay, let's see what happens.

Yep. All right, that's it. I feel better.

This one's still broody.

All right, well, here we go. Let's put her in the broody breaker. Was that it, guys? Only two hens attacking?

Yes, and the rooster, because the— be— be— is— you— be— is the— they were all freaking out.

He probably got caught up in the emotion. Yeah, because he's been okay, right?

Yeah. So why?

There you guys go, calm down. We got you some greens. Petting them, Josiah, getting them calm. Thank you, buddy.

Is this a big one? Is that the big one?

That's the big one right there. No, say goodbye to Papaw. Bye, bud.

Love you too.

Hope you get to see one day. I will.

All right, we'll see y'all later.

Bye, we'll see ya.

Bye!

We see ya. Enjoy your greens. Thank you for this. Thank you for the service. Bye, Jacob!

See you later! Bye, Gavin!

Bye!