Building a Homestead in 100 Days - Day 25

Day 25 of 100 days of growing food. 25% in. 2 acres we need to clear. We probably haven't done an eighth, so we are behind. And today we realize we're not gonna have any big machines till this is long over. So today we ask not what I can do with new machines, but what can I do without? Well, this is a failed attempt at cream separating today. This little milky cream separator been good for us in the past. We wore our old one out, so we got a new one, and it sits crooked and rubs like this. And that's little metal shards that have gone down in here. We can't have that. We can't drink that milk. We jerry-rigged a stick to level it. A little clothespin, but just for whatever reason that wasn't working today, so we're going old school. All right, enough cooking show, guys. It wouldn't be— wouldn't be cooking without smoke. She cracked her egg in our— in a bowl first. I don't want any eggshells to get in the pan and we have to get it out. It might burn my finger. Eggshell. Defense, but also rotten because you found those at the pole barn and God knows how long they've been there. Or if somebody's been broody and they're actually growing a chick, that'd be disgusting. Henry had a terrible night's sleep last night. We got up at 5 this morning, so I, uh, did a little bit of cleaning up. We now have a camp shelf. Now I have to contact the company, take our word for it, see if they'll let us return that. It is a $1,200 machine. We were hoping it would— thinking it would work outside the gate, but I understand things happen. So now we're gonna go old school and let the cream rise to the top and just harvest it with a ladle. Ladle. Yeah, you can tell I've not got enough sleep. Ladle. Sleep. Sleep. Haven't got enough sleep. It's called a ladle. Sausage and eggs. We've been alternating between the two essentials: sausage one morning with eggs, bacon with eggs the next morning. It's hard to believe this is a diet, a lifestyle diet. That's egg with a sausage in it. Hard to believe we can— I can eat short ribs all I want with butter on the side. Look how smooth this yogurt is. We've got our yogurt dal. It's smooth and thick. Cream rises to the top, so we mix it. I want to do it. Okay, go. Uh, let me see. That's it. Go back up and up and down, up and down. Getting that cream that's on the top worked into the bottom. Not our beef. Beef from US Wellness Meats. Thank God for them. They probably eat 3 or 4 cows a year a year. We eat so much beef. One big reason we're doing the 100 days building a homestead— it's really an expansion of our current homestead. 2 acres a year theoretically is one more cow a year. I imagine we need 3 milk cows so that we get 3 offspring a year, which would be our beef harvest. That, or keep 2 milk cows and get a steer each spring. Some beef broth, more salt. Jonah emptying dishes. Man, it was fun to have you back yesterday, Jonah. Here, buenos días. Everybody thinks they got a rucksack, all they gotta do is put the baby on the back. Ah, we've run out of raw feed for Winnie. I'm finally getting around to measuring How much dry peas you should actually have. That's 5 cups. I just need to know, remember what that looks like. Or better yet, I'll put this jar in there. It's a pint jar. It's got a cup measurement. Oh, Mom's laying out a cream cheese cheesecake for Big Daddy's birthday celebration tonight. Learned 2 things on a webinar last night on Abundance Plus with the Dohertys. Some of it was learned, some of it was just like a good reminder. When you think you need something or want something, which you could, you could ask, don't ask what can you do with that thing. I mean, I guess you can ask that, but you can also ask what can I do without it. She's almost as big as our bed, so I'm loyal. Yeah. One of the questions for Shawn last night was how do you stay motivated? To which he said, I've searched long and hard for the answer to that question because, well, I've asked it of him a lot and I'm sure he's got it before. One is that he likes it, and so I imagine most days he likes it. Word on the street was these guys ate their food yesterday. That's all today. We'll have to double-check with Lily. Just recently we ordered the wrong feed. We didn't get an already ground feed for our chickens. It came whole, so in order for them to digest it, we soaked it and experimented yesterday by putting the end product of that out. Well then, come on, you can catch me. I'm not waiting for you if you're crawling. You gotta hustle. Shawn's second answer to that question was, I look at it like it's my job. It's my service to my family. It's how I serve. Gosh, what a precious soul that man is. Meth and Shawn Doherty are some of the happiest people you'll ever meet. I think that servant mentality, their simple lifestyle, is a big secret to that. Que paso? You know what I'm realizing as we're getting behind? It's like 8:30. Should have been milking over half an hour ago. I'm not managing my morning time well. Well, of course I didn't know I was gonna be doing a project in the loft. It needed to get done. I need to be better about the evening routine. The miracle morning starts with the miracle evening. I could at least had the meal in mind and realized, hey, you need to get that, uh, the short ribs started. Now Mom wants us to experiment and and see if we can't get hind milk, see if these cows are holding back on us. So we milk, put the calves on, and then see if they have more milk. Back to this cheesecake thing and what I learned from Shawn. I pointed out something that I knew about him that you guys might not know. He takes a nap every afternoon. That's a privilege of this lifestyle he's set up. It's hard to get up out of that warm bed 5 o'clock in the morning. Does it ever motivate you to say to yourself, hey, I'll take a nap in the afternoon, and that help you get up? And he laughed and laughed and laughed, so I knew he and I had something in common. After Shawn got done laughing, I could tell he was moved. I could tell he had taught us something very special. Then I broadened the scope of the question and I said, you know, does something that you have to look forward to help you get up in the morning? He said, you gotta think about the little feasts and festivals throughout the day. Milking and getting up, I look forward to to the tea my wife makes me every day after the milk. And everybody went, "Aww." Well, at least I did. Timeout for a second. Interrupting this vlog to say we pulled it off and we got you one class from the Doherty's upcoming course in Abundance Plus University free. Link in the description. All you got to do is sign up with your email It's how to find land, affordable land, and make it work for you. Free class in the description, or if you're on your phone or TV, abundantpermaculture.com/findahomestead. Totally free resource, resource for you. Just need an email. Go and get it. Link in the description. So you know what got me out of bed this morning? A little feast and festival, a birthday party with Big Daddy, and that cheesecake. Oh yeah, which I will break from my usual diet to partake in for sure. We're gonna see if these cows are holding back on us. You think they are? I don't think Flossy is. We've tested her before. Phyllis, our old cow, was notorious for that. We'd come get almost double the milk after the calf got some of the milk down. So now I try to tell myself, as we're running late to clearing land, cheesecake, some Feast and Festivals. Let's go get these calves and start this experiment. Let's time this too to say, Rebecca, do you think it's really worth it? Because how much more time does it add to our chores? It's 9:12. Make sure we look before it's over. All right. Wow, she's gonna knock over the mill. Oh, let's see if that calf brought down any more. And then we could just say to Rebecca, hey, no, it didn't bring any more milk. Plus she didn't. No more milk. She brought down two. No more milk. We did it for love. We tried. Brush got put in poop. Cheesecake. Cheesecake. Graham didn't go through. That's Honey's calf. That's one way to get all the cream from her and more milk, is you are weaned, you are cut off, you didn't come through. We put the net up, he's separated from her. We'll get all the milk tomorrow morning plus the cream. The disadvantage to that is of course now we have to milk no matter what. We can't just leave the calves on, which we rarely do. How does it feel to maybe be going to walk? Good. Are you excited? Yeah. How's it going? You tired? Josiah's got everything loaded. Here we go. But you know what, this is the story. I mean, we got, we got 1 hour left. Isn't the struggle the story? If Frodo could just walk right over and drop the ring off and destroy it. It wouldn't be much of a movie, would it? Future speed bump. These logs got piled right here in the access road. Actually, I think we could probably get right through here. Wow, you guys are dirty. It's not the trail, but it could be one. It could get us to that trail, which gets us to Acre and a half. And where we're clearing now is probably half an acre to make 2 acres. That's the goal. That's the, uh, acre and a half over there. This is the half-ish acre we're on, although we might keep a lot of that because that's the neighbor right there and we want privacy. Let's continue our quest. This first little patch— I see you going through this one day, Josiah. Internet. Would a track loader get this out? It's probably about 4 inches on that diameter. A Mini X would definitely get it out, but could a track loader just push it over? What about this one? Could it push or pull this one over? 10 inches in diameter. Lucky definitely won't get that one out. Lucky could probably get this one out and put a chain on it, pull it out. You don't want to go sideways on this. You need to come straight up with Lucky because you want to be straight on it. Tractors are dangerous on these slopes, uh, but that is something we have. We could do the Joel Salatin way, which if it's good enough for him, it should be good enough for us. We will, uh, come back later and saw as close as we can and then bevel. Now there's no way we're not going to hit our chain on occasion. Dirt. In fact, some of these stumps are dirty because leaves are all around them, but we have an electric chainsaw sharpener coming. And that could help. Maybe we should just leave it until we get our machines. Good idea. Let's leave it and— till we decide and we're stronger. I mean, we could try that one with Lucky and see what Lucky can do. There's no harm in leaving them and then coming back later and getting them with the saw. The thing I learned from Shawn was— well, Shawn and Beth was When they go to buy something and they, and they have both decided they, they need it or want it, they insist on getting out of the garage sale, I guess. So, or used. So, and then one thing they said is a lot of times by the time we actually find one, we realize we don't actually need one. So that goes along with the great question of what can this new thing do for me? It's a good exercise to ask. What can I do without it? And we're gonna have to ask that today because I've got a tote coming. 2,000 pounds. It comes off a lift gate, but then how are we gonna get that 2,000 pounds into the garage? I've ordered the lift gate, which is a little more expensive. Not that much more, $30. Although it takes a little longer to get to us. I'm gonna have to order it by bags, which is quite a bit more expensive. But it's possible and it's what I have available to me now. And then we just move the bags and put them— we could put them in the tractor bucket or in the back of Sally. Everybody's in a better mood today. Lily's already on it, and you're sawing. We're gonna get a lot done. 40 minutes straight out here to that cherry tree, all those trees over. Yep, from that dark tree right there over. Impossible? Possible. I dare to say, in the spirit of abundance and entrepreneurship, that you might ask yourself a third question when considering something new. And that is, how can it create more abundance and income even? In the case of abundance, we get more acreage fast, which you saw. We're supplementing our beef with US Wellness Meats. The more acreage we have, the more homegrown beef we can have. And then we save on that bill. But also, in the spirit of entrepreneurship and, and, uh, Jeremiah's idea— hey, I'm— I have these machines, I'm not using them all the time. What if I hired an experienced operator, you know, got licensed, did all the things, insurance, and started a small grading business? Look at you, no crutch! I see it. All right, good job, buddy. I've already put feelers out to our contractor. He needs to rent one from time to time. He needs a grader from time to time. Randolph would be interested in being the operator. I've put out feelers to some of the local homesteaders, friends. Don't say you can't, just say how can I. Well, I guess we didn't set our goal high enough because we made it. There's that, uh, Cherry down. Let's see the before and after. Get you a before shot. After. I'm loving it. We're starting to be able to see more and more down there. She's starting to walk away from this, totally getting it. Still satisfying. So satisfying. We just did 2.5%. It's something. Hey, it's more than 1% a day. But I have a feeling it's gonna get pretty tricky down in there. It's not smooth cut. Pretty sure I'm not gonna get those big ones. I'm gonna leave those for the pros. I've heard too many stories of limbs falling out while you're sawing and getting paralyzed, skull busted open. If that tree falls over on you, you're gone, you're dead. It's not worth it. Now if we start a grading company, we're gonna have to have a truck to pull this heavy trailer and heavy machines. Yeah, and you're gonna need a dump trailer, probably. Hey, beautiful one. How's that turning out? I think it's turning out pretty good. Trying to fill it as full as possible. Did you taste it? Yeah. A lot going on this afternoon on the farm. Doing a full-on babysitting. This massive sandbox for the boy. Getting big daddy's birthday present ready. Grandma literally sent me a picture of it and was like, this is what I want to give him. And I was like, actually, we have one. She didn't have it. Where was it? It was in the wood stall. I think this thing is in better shape than I imagined. Yeah, it doesn't look too bad. Big Daddy needs him a gas can station. Looks pretty good. We have a lot of treasure. I think I used it once, if even. Used it a couple times. I used it. Kids used it. Yeah, it's a jungle gym. Josiah's got me going back at it. A little father and son time. Not gonna— Lily and Gideon are having fun. They did enough this morning. Josiah wants to go at it. He's like, okay, sharp chainsaw is fun. Fun. So that's what they did in just 24 hours. They're gonna be out of food in just 2 more days. They don't waste no time. You can see our pasture on the other side of the road way down through there. We're gonna have a nice little view from this spot. What's our impossible goal? The whole thing. That is impossible. Touché. I like Josiah's goal— the whole thing. Milly, Milly, get out of the way, get out of the way! Just leave your saw, it's all right. Oh boy, that— just got to let your saw get crushed. Did it get ruined? Yeah. Uh-oh. Definitely want to let the chainsaw get destroyed. Safety first. You did the right thing. Let's go check out this fruit cellar. There it is, a big block of sustainability. Storage without energy. Without energy is unfair. Earth's energy. This will be pitch dark in here. It will. Well, won't we have light? Yeah, we'll have to put a light in here. This is a door. Wait, I feel like it's a little wide. This would not be the door. That's the door to the outside, but she's gonna have a double storage. This, this area won't get as cold, and this area will get colder because it's deeper into the earth. Papa? Yeah, who did that? You. Oh boy, let's smooth that out. Why did you step right there? Yeah, that was Josiah. I didn't do that. Hold on, don't step in it. Oh, it's easily fixed. Okay. Oh my goodness. It's okay, it's not a fine finish. It's gonna be covered with dirt, likely. How's it look from up there? So cool. We won't even have to come out from underneath our house. We could go down the basement and then down to the root cellar. And there's our garden harvest. So big daddies for birthday. Happy birthday! We got you a New Year's kitty and Taspin. That's the stretch you saw me calling. Yeah, this is the height machine. This is for your back. Oh, are you all right? No, that's— do that 10 minutes a day, you feel good. Oh, okay. What I've been looking forward to all day. Yeah, you are. Maybe you should taste it. It's as good as it looks and smells. Big Daddy's favorite, key lime pie. Well, key lime cheesecake. All right, let's see if everything is cracked up to be. It's a little strong. Is it? In the couches. It's just sweet against that lime. Really? Yeah.