In Day 46 of the 100‑day homestead vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes documents a full day of farm work and personal experimentation in Western North Carolina. The family focuses on clearing a 2‑acre pasture, covering the vegetable garden for winter, and tending to a variety of animals (sheep, cows, chickens, a cat). Victor evaluates the economics of soaking whole‑grain feed versus feeding it directly, noting time‑cost trade‑offs. He also shares an "intentional carbs" experiment, re‑introducing modest carbohydrate sources (honey, rice, kombucha) after a period on a near‑carnivore diet, and reports a noticeable boost in energy. Throughout the vlog, interactions with his children (Lily, Henry, Josiah), trainer Jacob, and the animals provide a narrative backdrop, while occasional commentary on weather, World Cup soccer, and equipment (chainsaw, pole saw) adds color. The episode ends with a brief reflection on the energy improvement and a light‑hearted family sign‑off.
Chapters
Day 46 of our 100-day everyday vlogging, building our homestead this winter, expanding it. One of the goals being 2 acres of pasture cleared. We work on that today, plus cover our garden for the winter, and we explore intentional carbs. Let's do this! Energy's been down lately. It probably has something to do with jumping off the carnivore wagon for the last few weeks. But you know, my jump off, which is still whole foods, no seed oils, no processed sugar, basically no grains, some rice, is a lot of people's diets. And I gain weight, like 10 pounds, and lose energy and experience more pain. Good morning. You don't know if you want to leave, brother, huh? You don't know if you want to leave, brother. You want to give a hug? So I ate some honey this morning. Jacob our trainer is concerned about my energy levels. I don't know if I should be getting my energy from carbs. I should probably get my energy from fats, but I'm a little over it and I'm willing to try some things. I'm willing to have a little experiment right now. Slow down on the carbs. I opted out of the rice last night. I did have a kombucha. Hey! I'm gonna try more on-purpose carbs. Like, I wasn't even hungry this morning. I wasn't even like craving honey, but I took it. We gotta let a cat in. Thank you. Do you want me to stay and watch Henry? We're gonna try something new with Henry. I think we've been taking him too early. Lily, up and at 'em. You're gonna stay here first thing and then you'll come. I think he comes first thing and it's too wet and cold and he burns out and he's over it and he doesn't want to go out later. Let's try taking him later and seeing if he'll last longer. Maybe while the kids are doing the little animal chores, I'll start on the— to keep up with our own farm project before we expand the project— that will be covering our crop garden. Got a feast for Winnie today: beef, pork fat, and turkey. This hamburger fell out of the freezer. Who knows how long it's been there. I see you licking those chops. Go ahead. I think the best way to get a system going, go ahead and soak grain in 4 buckets. Accidentally ordered whole grains. I'm saying it's cheaper, although I, uh, looked it up yesterday. $615 for a 1,000-pound tote versus $635. $20 is going to be nothing for the amount of time it takes to do this. You save $20 getting whole grains on a 1,000-pound tote. That's not much. And if we talk about soaking our grains, which let's say takes 5 more minutes a day, we're talking about this lasts 100 days. That's 500 minutes. If the average farmhand— let's consider yourself a farmhand— is worth $15 to $25, that's $124.50 to $166 worth of time. It is not worth it. In that manner to soak. If we were just feeding grain, we would just take this out to the chickens. Oh, now wait a minute, we can feed less. We can technically feed at least 15% less. We just took time out to soak it. Is it worth that time? Hmm. Soaking does make feed go 15% further, so instead of 100 days, you get 115 days. Or you could just take off 15%, I think. If a 1,000-pound tote is $635, 15% off that is only $95. So even just taking the time to soak to save that 15% is not worth it because you can soak premixed feed or whole grains. You could soak either one and get 15%, so that's sort of a wash. This one doesn't have a handle. Great. Why'd I choose this one? Take two trips when I could have taken one. And then things like this happen. Lily accidentally spilled it, looks like. After 90 days of food being ground up, it's lost practically all its nutrients. If we got 1,000 pounds and we were feeding 10 pounds a day, well, that's 100 days. That's over 3 months, saying 3 months is 90 days. Lily moving the sheep. It is so wet today. Look who's clamoring to the Sally. This is a good sign. You know what's up, you're starting to lick your lips. Come here, guacamole. She comes right up to me. That's good. Now put it down. It's fine. We're gonna eventually have to put a collar on her, so we're gonna have to be able to touch her. It's been 3 days since we last treated Honey for mastitis. We collected mastitis milk, we collected regular milk. Let's see if we can't see a visual indication of Healing. Hey, could you tell? A tiny bit. It is a hair more yellow, but that's better than yesterday. We have to wait 7 days to test again. It may very well be clearing it. Let's unload and then let's go see if Henry wants to go with us. You want to go, baby Henry? Yeah? When you get the baby all dressed and then they hand you a plate of food, you eat outside on the picnic table. It is so pleasant out here right now. That's why we love calling Western North Carolina home. We have our cold spells, but they never last too long. Look who joined us! And thank you for the breakfast. You're welcome. Nobody wants to do this job, including me. We all want to be clearing, but we got to take care of our farm. Well, put this on the list. Can't even walk over to the sandbags. Oh, it had zip ties. This is not enough, but something is better than nothing for right now. Let's go clear some woods. Ew. Where'd it go? Josiah wants me to saw today. That's gonna be a little loose, isn't it? Henry, you gonna ride dirt bikes when you're older? Say no, I'm gonna be in guitars. Well, I need to learn how to play guitar. I like it. And I have to have a horse. I might find you a guitar lesson. I have to play the guitar to be a cowgirl. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Let's get this cluster of trees around the pine tree and these cluster of trees right there. I haven't gotten to run a chainsaw in a while. The boys have been running them. Look at how thick this creek is running. It's almost like a spring and then it rains. He wants to cut that big tree. Stand next to that tree, show how big that is. Well, I'm thinking that tree is as old as our family has been in the hollow. It's leaning, I'm pretty sure it's okay. If we get a pole saw, we could cut those lower branches, let more sun in. I think it's pretty, let's keep it. Hey, the big trees we wait till very last and we make Smart decisions. This is our goal, guys. We've done one side of the access road, which almost half-ish, probably a third-ish, and now we're starting to work back up the other side of the access road. Some pretty gnarly terrain. 15 minutes. You think we can get this little patch here? Nearly. We the last man standing? Looks like it. We're gonna leave the medium-sized ones, bigger ones for the boys, for their excitement. Let them have the thrill of that. We don't mind doing a little bit of the cleanup. Look at— look at the sun! This is winter sun getting in here. This would never get in here before. Lily, can you see your horse grazing in here one day? And before we train, a piece of fruit. Just got done training. Watch the game while we train. It's Australia versus Denmark. Denmark needs to win to get on. Australia just scored. Does anybody care about this? I don't know anybody that cares about this. I do. I'm the only one in my circle. You care? Hopefully I'm not boring you guys with the World Cup updates. Do I have a lot more energy today? I think you are maybe turning the corner. I definitely have a lot more energy. Yeah, I'm coming out of the crash or— or you're just eating. The intentional carbs are helping. You think I was gonna kiss you? You were leaning in, weren't you? So awkward. So I'm trying intentional carbs. I've never tried that before, have I? Intentional carbs in the morning for energy, and then a kombucha at night. Pure pleasure, pure something to look forward to with the meal. And then for a little bit of a dessert, plain yogurt. Homemade H2A2 raw yogurt, a little bit of chocolate. Somebody ran out of energy. It's a record, we are done eating dinner. It's 5 o'clock. How'd that happen? Went to the chiropractor this afternoon. Got some PT footage, right? I did. Roll it. Say bye-bye. Bye-bye. Can you say happy day? Happy day.
