Building a Homestead in 100 Days - Day 49

Day 49, practically halfway through 100 days of building a homestead where we establish 2 acres of pasture, develop access through the property, and tap water. In this video, brand new pigs are born. We examine our new GIS map to show you guys the plan, and we can totally write on them. We check on the new pigs, and it's a rest day for us. We've got a special Christmas surprise for the kids. We're going to a Lindsey Stirling concert late tonight. It's gonna be a blast. Doing something a little different today. Does she have a cup or something to take this out to her rabbits.

What is this hose for?

You think that's enough rabbit food? How does she do this? How does she do this, Jonah?

She gets a handful of rabbit food in her— in her pockets full of rabbit food.

She puts it in her pockets? Yep. Are you sure? Yes.

All right, I've seen her take them out.

Really? Yep.

She's took out some pegs.

That's gonna be a mess, but here it goes. All right, we got a serious deadline this rest day. The US is playing the Netherlands in the first round of knockout games today, 9 o'clock. As I said, serious deadline. I still don't know one single US player's name. These were our soaked grains. We took our oldest one out, we moved everybody down. A notch. Well, we're gonna have to drain this guy. You see what's happening? This was soaked yesterday. We drain off the liquid and then we move this down the line. What we take the food that we feed them today and we'll bring— we'll bring this back, soak it, and put it on the line. And then we have 1, 2, 3, 4 days. We soak it and then it has— what is that, 3 or 4 days to sprout?

What do I feed the pig that gave baby? All she can eat.

Just check on her a couple of times today. Give her a half a bucket of grain in her pan and then check on her at lunch. Maybe give her more, because the problem is the— shoot, the chickens. We're really gonna have to figure out a way long term to keep the chickens out of there. It won't kill them to have all they can eat though either. Yeah, but what do you think about that thought? The more you're feeding her, the more the chickens are going to eat their food. What do you think about that?

She'll eat it right away.

If she will eat it right away, then yes, definitely. Let's see it. I'll meet you over there. I just covered the tarp. It's kind of like our windy season here. If we— that's strong saying windy season, but it is windier in the fall and winter, it seems like. You said you found the hoses for putting water and weights in. Where is it?

I'll show you.

Okay. I learned this method of weighing down silage tarps and the likes on the Great American Farm Tour. You get these, uh, they're— I guess they're fire hydrant hoses. You fill them up with water and then you can lay them out and they give more coverage. There they are. Where are all the connections?

I don't know.

This is a different stall to have them in. They're not— I had lots of connections. See, fire hydrant hose. But we need caps to fill it up. Put the caps on, tighten this hose clamp, and you have weighted snakes. Okay, so these are ones that we've used before. Okay, hand me that.

You want to turn it off?

Yeah, I would think that The fittings would be nearby. I said anybody who finds that gets $20. You found half of it. I need you to find the connections now. So you get $10 for finding those hoses, another $10 when you find all the connections. What? How? That high tunnel is butterfly-proof. Get in, we gotta put this chicken in. There's still a chance that was a rogue chicken that never got in in the first place. I don't think so though. Joe, get in. Come chase that chicken in, please. Do they like everything? Dragon, can you tell if they're eating the corn? They're kind of just picking at it all. Clean out the rooster teeth. Wow, they've eaten all their rooster teeth, or a pig knocked it over when it got out. Yesterday she gave birth to piglets. 2, looky there, 2 piglets already nursing. We're gonna shut the greenhouse down. They're shivering. We're secure out here. Curing it. Okay, but wait, there's only one in here. Oh no, there's two. Don't feed it. Why not?

The pan can only hold a half bucket.

I don't know why he didn't want me to feed her, but okay. Chicken got out. Somebody forgot to do the door. Was it me? Did I forget? I'm so sorry. Okay, come on. I'm trying. No, no, I'm talking to the chicken. Oh dang it, they're all getting out. Gideon, can I get you to spot me? No, here, here, pay attention, pay attention. Put your helmet down. Get in. You come hold this door open, don't let anybody out. Come on, come on. You know exactly where you're supposed to go. New mamas really need to be in all the food they can get. Hey, how come you only gave us 2 babies? Normally a pig will give you 10+ babies. She gave, I think, 8 on her first farrow the last time.

Yeah, she did.

It's a bit strange. I'm glad nobody's stuck in there though. We were afraid when she only had 2 is somebody stuck. But it looks like she's up and at 'em, eating, hungry. She's drinking, so I think everything's okay. This toboggan is overkill. This sweater's overkill. It's so warm out here.

I got them yesterday evening.

Okay, remember to get them tonight. I will, right after supper, because we're going to the concert. You excited about the Lindsey Stirling concert?

Yes.

Do you know who Lindsey Stirling is? Yeah. So what's the deal? You're getting two pans? Oh, you got a bigger pan. Mama Pig is upset. Hey, does this help kind of keep chickens out? Okay, go ahead. Well, there's no chickens in there right now. Gideon, there's an egg right there. Look, do you see, Henry? Do you see the little piglets? We rolled down the sides to keep them warm. They are shivering a bit. Mucho pollos en aquí. Lots of chickens in there. Not many chickens in here. No chickens in here. Does this really keep them out? Heck yeah. Josiah, maybe all we need to do is pig panel and this other panel we got out of the dumpster years ago and that we've used hundreds of times on the farm. Please shut that door. And my little grain experiment with the chickens, we left it moist and sprouted for like a week. They ate it, but I hope it doesn't take that long. We're getting way into the point of it's not worth it. What is going on here? Okay, we're not supposed to have any problems on Saturday, our zero day. We have problems, and that's something we have to fix. Do we have any channel lock pliers?

Channel?

I bet you I'm gonna have to go up to my stash. You go get me my channel locks.

I don't know what they are.

Go with me so you can learn what a channel lock is. Okay, this is definitely not worth it. Yeah, okay. Goes 50% further, you save $20 on a $600 order. Guys, that is not worth your time to soak grains. It's just not. Your time is valuable. You could use that time to earn money in a different way or save money in a more effective way. The only two reasons I'm willing to do this right now is one, I ordered this feed on accident. I meant to have it already ground up. The other reason would be it does save its nutrients when it's whole like this. Oh, I got another bucket without a handle. Why do we even have buckets without handles? I'm throwing that away. Yes, I'm throwing away a bucket because chores are miserable when you don't have handles on your bucket. And what are we living for? And what do we spend most of our time doing on the farm? Chores. It joins the club with this guy. Yes, I could get handle replacements probably. Then again, we're wasting time. I gotta fix that. Okay. Ah, much better. I don't care that it's jacked up. I mean, maybe it ought to be worth it to buy some replacement handles because that is plastic. I hate to throw away plastic. Do you see what's happening here? There are all these factors. There's no, there's no like necessarily clean-cut black and white. From a savings perspective, it's not worth it. Can you get out of the way of the drain? Soak and sprout. But from a nutritional perspective, it may be worth it. From a storage perspective, because I'm gonna have to get— I like to get 1,000 pounds of feed at a time. Well, now I wonder, well, is that worth it? Maybe I should just get it by bags and not order a whole ton. And, and I save it when I buy it by the ton, but I should probably run the math and see if that's even worth it. It's kind of a pain. You have to have a machine to unload it, but then if you don't, you're unloading it by hand, and that's quite miserable and dangerous, lifting 50-pound bags. I think we've got all this set up, and it probably makes sense to just throw away the bucket on a time sense, but that bucket's with us 450 years, and we want to leave the world a better place for 7th generation grandchildren or whatever the heck it is. But fair enough, probably not at the expense at the expense of our sanity. Now, how to fix this? So it's all about finding the balance. And don't think we're ever sure of what that balance is. And don't think you're the gold standard. Everybody has a different standard and set of what they think the balance is. And do rest in knowing it's okay, you're just trying. It's okay to not know. Find this channel box, fix this once and for all. I need to be wrapping this up so I can start tuning in. Where are the channel locks? Are you serious? If I was gonna have one wrench, it might be channel locks. No, this can't be happening. No, if I could only have one wrench, it would be vice grips, and I'm not seeing those either. I guess my kids have the same opinion on valuable wrenches. Now the third one I would have is certainly an adjustable wrench, but that is not the tool for the job today. Rebecca! I'm so upset. What? I'm so upset. Why? My channel locks are gone. My vice grips are gone.

Your what?

My channel lock pliers. My vice grips. Oh. She thinks I'm gonna— it's gonna be a real issue. That's a good point. This is not a real issue. Everything's good. Everybody's alive. Everybody's safe. Nobody's hurt. Okay, thanks Rebecca, bringing me back to reality. This is not a big deal. In the whole scheme of things. Why is it so orange in here? I'm getting kind of ill this morning. Get these blue lights on. Can you find the nice wrenches that somebody ran off with in here? Goodness. Y'all can judge me all you want for this messy— oh, look what I just found for this messy cabinet. There's another adjustable wrench. I found like 4 of those. What you want? You want these? That's probably the problem. Here, take these. Here, here. No? Okay, we're going. Oh, these are for you tonight. These are for your concert. Okay, thank you, Becky, for the perspective. I just don't want to run any problems on the zero day. Perfect day for a zero day though. It's raining, you feel less guilty for Sitting inside and watching the World Cup. Okay, back to judging me on this mess, you know. Well, I'm on a mission to get it cleaned up, but then I'm reading the one thing— this book, it's been really good, it's been really good. They're saying you need to focus on the most important thing. Just being tidy and orderly may not be the most important thing. It's certainly important to grow your own food, and it might be to the expense of having a bit of a disheveled homestead. I don't like that truth, but there are certain things you gotta take control of. Nope, still leaking. Yes, yes! Now before I forget— so yeah, this is stupid. I need to take the minute and put these away. I think it might be wise to get help on some of this picking up, and then that allows me to focus more on the creatives, the more of the productive things. I'm not saying it's an excuse we should just remain disheveled. I think we should ask ourselves, how can I be orderly and yet not take away from the most important thing I should be doing? One thing I can be doing is figuring out a better ever-flow water system for the animals. A water that is always clean, never freezes, and that we never have to fill up all winter long. I need to take the time and do that because once that's set up, I'm not hauling 40 pounds of water across the farm every 2 or 3 days. I know I hear some of you saying, why are you hurrying up and rushing around and getting stressed out for some Stupid ball game. I hear you, I hear you, because this is our 7-day-a-week deal. And why is this locked? And how in the world am I gonna get in there? I put Gideon inside. I don't know what he would do for me. I guess I could lift him in. Gotten locked. You can only unlock it from the inside. You know what, before I forget— wait a minute. Where's her water for this rabbit? There's supposed to be a bucket of water on top of this. How are you even alive? It must not have been too long. Here's the water cord. That's part of the deal. She's learning how to be responsible with a rabbit before she's learned to be responsible with a horse. It's one thing to kill a rabbit, a little 4 or 5 pound rabbit. It'd be a whole nother to kill a 1,000 pound horse. This is kind of flimsy. Can I— should I climb this? My leg! Okay, all right, that's what we're doing. So the World Cup, it's really the only sporting event I ever watch. Only happens every 4 years. It's some nostalgia, I think. 4 years ago was the first time I could really watch it quite a bit. We've gotten to a place where I could take some time off in the afternoon and watch it. The 4 years before that, we were— I was in Australia getting my permaculture design certificate, and I remember watching those guys in the evening, and it was so much fun. It's actually a lot more fun when you can watch it with people who enjoy it, and I just haven't been— I have nobody that is interested to come see, so maybe one of these days Before that, we were serving in Honduras at an orphanage, and I remember the games were on and I couldn't do it because I had so many obligations on the farm and to the kids. I remember they even had Denmark versus Honduras in the World Cup, which was really cool because we had a lot of Denmark Danish friends there, as there was a lot of volunteers from Denmark there. And of course we were in Honduras, so that would have been a fun game. I couldn't watch it. I had other duties. Maybe it's time for me to get a better duty. So maybe it's a little bit of like you get withheld from something and then you're like, when you can, you just go over, you go overboard. Today it's important to start watching at 9. I've not yet watched a live game yet. We have TiVo or DVR, whatever these things are called, and so the games are recorded. Live will be more exciting. Lily, I'm concerned. I'm very concerned. There's no water bucket on top of the rabbits. None.

Oh yeah, they're little. There's a little, um, container with water in it. It has a little nipple. That little container is full of water.

How do you know that works?

Because I tested.

The water cord isn't hooked up down to the rabbit. How do you get the rabbit to water?

Let me just go show you.

I guess we're not making it. Because you're— you're gonna show me this and we gotta feed the lambs. Can you put your shoes back on? Oh, you have that water broke. Okay, all right, I'm happy with that. That's fine. Sorry I judged you. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?

Yeah, I'll forgive you.

Okay, thank you.

The rabbit bucket.

Okay, is this for your little horse course? That rock? No, that's redneck. I'll tell you the definition of a redneck: cinder blocks in the yard. Random. Here's something for your course. I'm sorry, I'd rather miss the game than be a redneck. I got 10 minutes. Have y'all ever done that? Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up to relax. Yes, you have. The day before vacation, prime example. Oh, I know one. Sunday morning, for many of you who go to church, getting ready to go to church. You kind of lose your religion to go practice your religion. You're gonna go do your own thing? Okay, well, I'm in a, I'm in a big hurry. So hop in, Sally. You coming? I'm letting it go. I'm letting it go. Now we're waiting on the baby. Okay, got the baby. Stay with Mom. Ain't this enough? Look, Lily's building her horse course.

She's the horse.

Oh, she's the horse.

She can't get a horse.

She's the horse. She's gonna be the horse. Yeah, I like this horse course. Looking good. We can get them back to the main flock too. There's nothing left for them to eat out here in the woods. Incidentally, we did not tape it, but last night the Seminoles got out and they got in with the main flock, and we're like, oh, that's okay, we need to do that. But Nacho was after them. We do not need them to get pregnant yet, they're too young. So we put Nacho— well, let's go. Well, no, I'm not gonna go. I only have 4 minutes. You gotta take my word for it. We put Nacho in the Luchador pen. He's separated from all the ladies and all is good. Everybody is bred that's supposed to be bred. I've got 1 minute.

What are you doing?

All right, Mom's coming in with the baby. It was fun to hang out with them a little bit. They are— talk about the most important thing. That's it. That's why I gave it up. I'm not gonna get to it on time, but there are more important things. Not that I know of. Had to let it go. Wow, all that for nothing. I got 1 hour. Looks like we could tie up some loose ends back. Got a little bit of time. I do want to tune in early. Lily, hey, you were supposed to come in and do the milk. Yeah, the boys, afraid they're taking advantage. I think they're playing and the house hasn't been cleaned yet because of this beautiful weather. Throwing, throwing them off. Oh my, call the Inquirer! We hit 3 digits. 100 degrees. Not nearly where it needs to be, but it's more than 75. Not burning the wood. I'm not giving up because hopefully the parts came in and hopefully the dealer will come out maybe this weekend, and I want this to be running so we can see the problem. We got it. It's rip-roaring now. I'm in some mood about this stove. Let's check over chores, get in. Look like they're in food, which, by the way, I should have mentioned this a lot earlier— they're for sale. We're going to sell all the piglets. They're on the Abundance Plus Marketplace, which is to buy— to go and buy something. Members can list, but the whole public can go and buy. So I've listed them on the marketplace. I'll leave a link in the description. They have plenty of feed. So if you want to get a pig from me, we have a pickup date. So you're going to need to order. The, the piglets went fast last time. So you'll get to come to the farm, see the farm, pick up the piglets. And mighty fine piglets they are. I sense on a warm day like that today The kids are ready to play, and we really need to make sure the chores were done right. Oh, this is nice. Look, he zip ties this off, and so far it's keeping chickens out. We're good. And water on both sides. This one leaking a little bit, but not too much. We don't have to fix it maybe till tomorrow. And be careful not to step on the piglets. Here, there's one. Did the other piglet make it? I saw it this morning. Where's the second one? Right there.

And the second one right over here.

You sure?

Yeah, I remember seeing a little tip of it.

Yeah, that was it. A little piglet shivering. It's warm in here. Oh, here it is!

You found it?

No. Yeah, there it is. Watch out, watch out, watch out! It's just buried. There it is. It's fine. You're a sweet thing. Oh, you are warm in there. Oh, look, Henry, look at the baby! Look at the baby! I am loving this high tunnel right about now. Warm, dry for us and especially the animals. Great place for pigs the Pharaoh. I'm loving it, I'm loving it, Papa. And it's multi-purpose. In the summer it's cucumbers and tomatoes, heat-loving crops. Yeah, what is it? Hey man, if this is all we got to do to keep chickens out— last year wasn't— they figured it out and jumped up or something. Maybe, maybe we didn't have their wings clipped. They're not going in there. Look at you. What's that?

It's marshmallow fluff.

Marshmallow fluff. Yeah. And you got your hot chocolate over here?

I haven't made it yet, but yes.

What do you do, just heat up the milk? Um, yeah, and add chocolate to it.

And add the chocolate to it, and then the, the, um, sweetness comes from that.

Nice, I like it. Let's check out these maps. Okay, so this is the overall aerial map of our entire farm. We're there. This is the original 55 acres right here, and then this is the new track that we're working— new, been in the family only 30 years as opposed to 90. Oh look, look, look, he's already mapping this out. So this is a bigger version of the property we're working on. These are the roads.

This is where they need to go.

Okay, so this one goes all the way up here to the water, so keep drawing it. This is cool.

Maybe this road should start here.

And you already kind of know where there's roads? Yeah, we found an access. These are old logging roads.

It's not an access road that goes like this.

You know what we established in this 100 days? We established this access road all the way up to here. It wasn't that hard. So I do wonder if we ought to establish this one, the one up to— oh wait. No, it's more like this. You have to build a bridge right here across the creek.

There's like a road right now, right? Like a wooden bridge. Yeah, can we clear like all this?

You're hot. You're too high up with your drawing here. That happens down here, I'm pretty sure, because remember it comes up to Grandma's house. So this is super cool. We got this map laminated. You can just get these files from your county. So search Google GIS map in your county. And then you go to a print shop and have this printed and laminated. So I'm thinking the 2 acres of clearing is about right here. Uh, what do you think?

We've already kind of gone out of that.

Okay, ish. This is it. All right, and I think we've cleared— what should we show? How should we show clearing? We've, we've cleared We've cleared like this. You know, that's not really clearable, I don't think. Where's the— where's the eraser? So that needs to be redrawn right here. So that's cool. We've kind of gone half—

we've already cleared a half.

Wait, I think this is wrong. This is more like this. Yeah, it's more like this. Yeah, see, there's the huts. So the acreage really goes like this. Okay, and we've cleared this, wouldn't you say?

Don't forget, we cleared a little bit down here.

Okay, so we have this left.

We also cleared a little bit here.

Did we?

Yeah.

Okay, there you go. I'd say we're close, if not halfway done, at this halfway mark. That's neat. We're on track, it looks like. We just got to stay on track. We still got a lot to do with water coming up. It's going to take us off the acreage. Watching the pregame show. They said there's watch parties all over the US. Well, babe, it's just our family, but that's enough, right? That's right. Let's see, we're having a watch party. Chocolate, hot chocolate. It's good. I have not watched live TV forever. The kids are mesmerized by commercials. Yeah, we used to have to put up with these things called commercials back in the old days. Well, we were doing good. We had the advantage, and 10 minutes in, the Netherlands got one on us. Let's move to the living room, guys. Halftime. Hey, so much for our watch party.

Well, we're watching.

Okay, yes, it's Lizzie.

2-0.

Are you in for the party for the second half?

Can I have a tissue?

It's pretty hopeless, I think, though.

No, don't say that.

I just hope the Argentina-Australia game's better. Here you go, buddy. What does he need it for? Oh, his nose. Oh, 15 minutes to go. U.S. scored. Well, it's over. The Dutch scored. Yeah, 3-1. There's no way. 10 minutes though. All right, the USA lost 3-1. Maybe we won't feel so bad because the Netherlands are like one of the favorites to win the whole thing. So maybe if they win the whole thing, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Come here, you want to get these on? Yeah. All right, come on. Hey, how do I look?

Your hat's—

I haven't dressed this nice since my dad died.

No, we went to, uh—

oh, that's right, we had built— did a Biltmore Christmas Everybody, let's see how everybody looks.

The only guy that's really not dressed up is the baby.

Mom straightening me out.

We need—

can we have you guys take your shirts off first? Okay.

Are you gonna be able to wear all these clothes?

It's gonna be a little hot. I'll have to take the coat off. I guess I'll just carry the coat.

Are these the 8s?

It might not even be this. I know, the 38 sweater might even be too much.

I know, I'm thinking maybe you should take the sweater off and I'll just wear the coat.

All right. He just goes like this as if we just normally do this. Actually, this is— we are definitely winding up for bed. Usually lights out by 9 o'clock. This show starts at 8. Here we go. What's it feel like to be up at these all hours of the night? Weird. 7 o'clock. 6:30. Weird. You gonna have a good time? Yeah. Who's the most excited?

Me.

I don't know. Lily says me. She wasn't so sure and then I showed her a video. She was all over it.

It's gonna be fun.

All because of little girls, all right.

It was like 3 or 4 years ago somebody, it might even have been longer, was like, we're going to a Lindsey Stirling concert, and I was like, oh man, I wish I knew about that, and so now every year I think about checking her tour schedule and she was gonna be in town today, so very excited.

Big line. We didn't think we'd come before they opened the door. Turn right, then slight right.

We're not getting out of the car right away.

Kids wanted to park at the very top of the parking garage. These hillbillies don't get out much. See over the edge? Want to go see over the edge, Henry?

What do you think, Henry?

Hey, put the camera down! I'm going to take a video of—

wow, look! Beautiful Asheville! But look down! I dare not. Oh my gosh, don't drop the baby! Goes all the way up there, around and in, but it is moving. The line is moving. We're way over there. Half an hour to go.

Probably, yeah.

Too much. A little heavy.

It was a little too loud.

I was like, I'm not very comfortable standing there.

It was very uncomfortable.

Kids had a good time. You had a good time, Josiah?

The kids did.

They did. I think Jonah and Josiah wanted to stay, but next time. I think it's an older kid event, isn't it? Station.

And Lily, you don't even want to go.

I did my step.

I stepped.

Oh gosh, we have another— she hurts so bad. Wrong shoes, babe.

I'm wearing the wrong shoes.

Okay guys, scale of 1 to 10, how awesome was that for a Christmas event? 9. Jonah votes it a 9. Lily, a 9. 9. Mom?

Yeah, I like I like that. There was a lot of Christmas. Lots of Christmas.

Okay, we all give it a 9.