Building a Homestead in 100 Days - Day 80

Wrap it away. Josiah's got lessons. Let's go do his chores. Then I gotta come cook eggs in 30. Where's your boots, Henry?

I don't think they're in here.

Maybe they're out here.

Tractor!

Tractor! Yesterday was your lucky day. You got to see a tractor covering the root cellar, and he got to see a tractor loading the hay. We're getting a tractor loader very soon. You see it? Thank you. You only need two?

Yeah.

Nice. And there's the chicks. That smile, priceless. There you go, be gentle. Free the bird! Ocho chanchos! I'm glad you chose to come. Let me carry him anymore. Can you keep up? Don't get distracted. He's waving goodbye. Come on. Snowhead represents a year worth of feed, gets us through winter. Of course, we get through the growing season on the grass and then got a little bit more to get us back through Christmas again. Look at that, look at all that hay. Josiah, let's do your piglets. Hey, good morning.

Good morning.

He forgot to put some hay in your shed there. We are moving the cows over here though again, right, so they can get their minerals? We'll herd them to the stanchion if we want to.

Yeah.

Do you want to keep doing that, milking at the stanchion, or just milking here? Might as well just put poop right where we want it, huh? And if Flossie doesn't behave herself, we'll build a stanchion in here, and then somebody could bury corn in here. Yeah, while we do that.

Well, the sheep can't buy corn while the sheep are in here.

Oh, that's right. Shoot. Yeah, there went that idea. Sheep will scratch. And dig up the corn and eat it. And we don't want to feed our sheep grain, it's not good for them. So what are we going to do with this? Holy smokes, 2,000 pounds of corn! The idea is to mix it in the deep bedding. As you add more material, it gets more buried and buried and buried throughout. And then you bring the pigs in in the spring to stir up the deep bedding and help get it to compost. Come on guys, we got to get going!

Gideon, are you at the bottom?

As I said in Rooted Episode 4, I see a year's worth of feed for the cows, and these kids see a fortress. If I see a stack of hay as a year and a half worth of feed, but the kids see it as a castle on top of a mountain, those are two different worldviews, two different things, and those are conflicting. Because I don't want their dirty shoes on those hays because that hay is going to be feed for the cows. But they don't want me to take the hay and feed the cow because that's destroying their castle. It's marrying of the both worlds. You guys got to check out Rooted 4 in Abundance Plus if you haven't seen it. Nice, did you drop down through there that far? Yeah, nice. Rooted 4 is all about how kids and adults, they balance each other if we work together. Because now I have two different worldviews of this hay. Uh-oh, are you finding a nice quiet place to go to the bathroom? He has a sense that he wants to. Okay, I won't point the camera on you anymore then. I really want a chainsaw bad. I really want us to get out there and clear bad. I feel like we're making the most progress doing that. These guys really need to get out of here so that we can put the steers in here. Can't put the steers and the mamas together because they'll nurse. How hard is it gonna be to set up pigs out there? It's not that hard. We put up—

is the water going?

2, 3 nets. Oh, that— we're waiting on those parts. Okay, I guess we're clearing. But other than that, we just set up some nets and run electricity. Uh-oh, they need water. Just saw— hook my water up, please, Jonah. I'd say they're thirsty. Beck, it was a week ago today. I know. How are you feeling right now?

I just—

it'll go away.

I know it'll go away.

Yeah, she's doing better. You made, uh, supper last night.

Last night, or at least heated it up. Can't wait till you start making breakfast again. It seems like a little thing, but if you're not doing it, I gotta do it, and it's like 20-30 minutes out of the morning process.

I can start making it.

Oh, that's very nice of you. That's a good idea, actually. We put in a little early. We didn't hear it. We didn't hear any sizzle. Nice, dog.

Livestock.

There's the tractor. The hay guy's coming back for this. Not mine. Soon we'll have something like this, but we're going to get a lot of work done with something like this. Okay, soon you'll get to get a lot of ride time on this. He's just lit up.

He's choosing it the wrong way.

I don't know if we should go clear today. I think the more responsible thing is get those pigs out. We do only have 20 days left in this challenge. Jonah seems to think we're done clearing. One of our stretch goals is to get these 10 market pigs out there to start rooting it up so we can plant some pasture seed to get things going faster.

This feels so good out here. It feels like—

hey, we're gonna be in Florida in 3 weeks, babe. We gotta finish strong. Only 20 days left of 100 days.

I can't wait.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, everybody deserves the break. It's best if we can put everybody over in the pole barn because everybody needs to get their milk.

Yes.

I agree. The sheep are gonna have babies in time, right?

Yes.

Instead, Muffin's not gonna step on.

Hey, I know.

Okay, I just want to make sure because last year we were nervous about that.

I know, but I think— but it's okay. My other thought would be to do something with some pallets. We made it so that the opening was wide enough for the moms and the babies to get in there.

That might be interesting. We should always keep maybe the sacrifice paddock open. A little bit of a sacrifice area here. We always keep that open. The sheep will have that area, they'll have out in the concrete, and they'll have in there. Lambs are pretty nimble from day one.

Can we, can we move them into there where the cows are?

No, if we put everybody here, everybody can get the minerals. It's easier to do all the chores in one area, then we can focus hard on this last bit of 100 days. And chores are easier for the farm sitter when we're on vacation. One, two and a half, plus a little bit more. I think what I'm going through this morning is common and very important to note, which is we have this long homesteading or life to-do list. So many choices. I could clear— I could get water ready for the pigs. I could clean up the farm. And what we want to do may not always be what we should do. Right now I want to go clear. It's been a while since we've been able to clear, and I hate doing water lines. We could get the cows over. That's gonna have to be a priority today before we go in. And nobody has all the time in the world. We've all got other things we got to do. We've all got other jobs, we've all got family. We're tangled up already. So in this case, I'm having to look for different things on the table today— clearing or continuing setup for the pigs. There is only so much I can do because I am waiting on some parts. I need somebody to run this in. Josiah, you call him. One, he's supposed to be watching Henry. Henry's right there. Josiah, well, you were supposed to watch Henry. He's over here. Lily, Gideon, come on, come on. You too, Josiah. You can have all afternoon to play. That's one thing you guys don't get to see a lot in the afternoons. I'm usually doing office work and working on the business. And the kids are out playing. Out of two things, we have to look at what can wait. I feel pressure because we don't have 20 days left on the 100 days, so I want to clear and I want to do it. Those sheep are going to have babies any minute, and we really need the place where the pigs are, and we really need to get them out in the— to the field doing the work. Okay, now we're in a tangle. Wow, okay, that's easy. All right, pull it. Let's pull it tight, see if it won't untwist. All right, let go, see what happens. Nice. Okay, I think we did it. When you don't have enough time to do everything, it really helps you decide when you prioritize. You might not like the answer if you're honest with yourself. But that's where discipline comes in, and you end up doing the greater work. This weather is great and conducive for working, but it's also conducive for kids running off and playing. Do you know where the rest of them are?

Y'all come with.

Where's Henry? Oh, Leah's here. That's right. Okay, good.

She's getting more and more comfortable.

There's the end. Let's hope this is 300 feet. I don't know if it's going to reach get you all the way back to our line or not?

Definitely will.

I definitely think not. You want to bet some money? No betting.

You can do my chores though.

Well then, uh, what do you do for me if I, if I'm right? I don't know. We're gonna run this pipe back onto the road. Right now it's going down through the creek, so we're gonna kind of just ease up out of the creek. I couldn't be in a more jungly place, could it? Watch out, raise it up here.

Quick, Papa!

Got that quick.

Whoa, that one is like a charm!

Yeah, it did. All right, we're good. There you go, that was easy. Winnie! Oh wait, and put the ring on. All right, let's go down. Let's just walk, putting it to the side of the road. Out of the way. I want it to be on the road and not down on the creek the whole way, so it'll be accessible, fixable. Look at this, plenty. It reached. Uh-oh, water's already here.

Goodness, it reached plenty.

You don't want water to spit on you.

All right, Jonah, clamps.

You got the clamp?

All right, I wonder if that'll be going down by the time we get down there. We're pulling it, getting all the slack of it out of it. See this? See the slack in it? We have an outlet here that we don't have a cap on, so what— yep, there it starts. Water's just gonna run out. Let's go see if we have a shutoff that we put on it. We're gonna have to have a shutoff here too. There's another one. 3. The real parts are coming in 2 days, 3 days. It is starting to rain, so I'm not too interested in finding temporary cap for those. I do think we could get this under the garage. Put in our pig nipples. Watch this.

Ah, there it goes.

That'll do it. We can put pig nipples on this. We need to put a shutoff on this so that we can drain it right here. We forgot to put the cows over so they could get their, uh, minerals. Let's stop what we're doing on the pig waterer and get the cows over. I'll give you a little bit of a funnel here. Come on, boss. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, she's not— she's not getting my signal. There you go, there you go. Now we got to get these calves over. Go! Sheep's leading the way. Bring it in, bring it in. That was smooth. Good job, cowboys. That's a good looking group of steers right here. Come on, sheep. All right, she don't want none. I feel better about this. Moms can easily get to the out— to the minerals. This is exactly what I wanted. Them two milk cows need 100% priority on those minerals. The rain has held off, so let's work out here. Are we low enough yet?

Yeah, we're low enough.

Okay, pull the trigger. Okay, there you go.

That's a good clean—

that's a good clean cut.

Ow! Good.

Oh gosh. Oh no, no. Don't push it. No, push it out. There you go. Okay. Yep, that's the right end, and you've got the right side there. This does work better with the camera. I like it.

There it is.

We got the third one in. Let's hope no leaks. There you go, fill it up. Let's see if we've got any leaks anywhere. That's a good sound right there. We cut down our PVC tube so there'll be more drop from the intake to the overflow. How about this for a plate of food?

It's stuck.

You okay? Half short ribs. Half roast and some sauerkraut. I guess it's a carnivore-ish diet because I am doing sauerkraut and pickles and lemon juice in my water. Sounds— I'm such a rebel. Exciting. No, I think it's good because it— I don't know, some fiber. Yeah, zero carbs, and you got the probiotics, uh, and it's just good to have some different taste, and I don't think it's going to inflame me whatsoever. You enjoying your sweet potatoes? And zucchini. That's our hack. On good days, we cook one meal, one big enough meal that we can have those leftovers for lunch. Seth is leveling out the yard. Oh my word, we're about to get our yard back. How long has it been since we've had our yard? This started before his accident.

I want to say August 23rd.

Oh my word, it looks like a danger zone. He built us a nice ramp though. Going into our house. September, October, November, December— almost 5 months.

It's been 4.

The rain has come. What a beautiful view at the back of my bedroom window. As a producer for Abundance Plus, making TV shows in there, this is one of my best jobs. We're about to approve the season finale for Divergence. Beautiful one not feeling well. I'm gonna join her right there.

I felt this morning.

Well, that's good.

I feel better in the afternoons.

That's good. Hang in there, babe. We're gonna watch this season finale, which is an hour long. Benjamin Roberts went all out on this thing, so let's check it out together. Tragedies like this most often destroy couples. We have to recognize and fully own that That was a work of art. Bravo, Benjamin Roberts. That is episode 5, the season finale. There are 5 divergences. Remember the Robert Frost poem, how two paths diverged in a wood and the guy ended up taking the one less traveled by and it was worth it? Well, that's what each and every one of these episodes are about— a different family or different individual or couple. Every time It's definitely a source of inspiration to all of us because we're all— we've all diverged, aren't we? If you're watching this, you're diverged. You ain't normal, but that's okay. Doesn't mean you're not right. We have our water overflowing. That's good. So that means it's filled up. And if it were cold out, it wouldn't be freezing because it's always moving. This nipple is not dripping. This one, the nipple itself is something, and there is a drip right here. I don't know if it's slowing down. Ah, afraid of that. This one, I don't even have to look at it. I know it's not. We drilled the smaller hole there. Over time, especially 12 days, that's gonna be a big mud pit right there. Oh wow, I can't tap it. Oh, whoops, wrong way. Well, maybe tightening it up will help because loosening it—

oh boy, keep going the loose way. That's funny.

Are you recording this?

Yes, keep going, keep going.

I don't think so. I think it fell out. See, you almost fell out of the— fell out of the thing. I think we might be able to fix this, guys.

Hot dog, it's the nipple.

There you go.

So did you tighten that one hole more, Link?

Yeah.

Okay, I think there might be gook, like dirt, in it, and if If the water would push the dirt out, it might fix it.

It's still dripping. I think it's the actual nipple, which can be replaced or taken apart and fixed. Let's see your donut. Nice.