In this Day 39 vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes and his homestead crew discuss several intertwined aspects of their life on the homestead. The video opens with a conversation about a family member's doctor and physical‑therapy appointment, noting that monitoring will continue for up to two years and outlining activity restrictions. The group then shifts to Thanksgiving preparations: Victor brines a turkey while Rebecca prepares cornbread stuffing and sweet‑potato casserole, sharing details of the brining process and the timing of the holiday meal. The core of the vlog centers on a “demo day” land‑clearing effort. Volunteers Sean, Jonah, and others, equipped with chainsaws, hedge trimmers, and a John Deere rep’s machinery, clear roughly 3,000–3,600 sq ft of forest near a block building, tracking progress, setting “impossible” goals, and discussing technique. Sean explains his motivation to volunteer and learn from Victor, highlighting the community‑learning aspect. Victor reflects on the homestead’s broader expansion plans, noting the need for additional acres to support a cow, a potential horse, and future livestock, and invites viewers to join their Thanksgiving celebration. The vlog blends practical updates, collaborative labor, cooking, and personal reflections, illustrating the day‑to‑day rhythm of building a self‑sufficient homestead.
Chapters
Jonah, you ready for the doctor's appointment?
Yep.
Is this the final one? No. No? No?
She said she's gonna have to monitor him for 2 years.
Good Lord, I hope that's right.
I mean, I don't think like this regularly, like maybe like once once a 6 months type thing.
Yeah.
I don't know, maybe once a quarter.
Is, uh, today the day you ask if you're gonna ride a motorcycle? Yeah. Is today we ask about getting the pins out?
Yeah.
Screws. Mm-hmm. We're gonna ask about that.
Okay.
Okay, so here's the big question. What kind of things are you not supposed to do? You're gonna get quizzed on this. Like? Not lift past 90. Okay, and what else? Not when I'm standing, twist my leg. Okay. How do you think that went, guys?
Good. You know, every time I go—
Baby's not a good idea to get the pins out, they said.
The screws. Yeah, every time I go I just learn a little bit more and understand a little bit more exactly what even happened. There's a lot I don't know what happened. I don't even know how it really happened.
Might be pulling the trigger on the machines today. Scheduled. We are back. I gotta brine the turkey. You come with me. We're gonna get chainsaw gear ready. Josiah's going to get chainsaw gear ready. Definitely excited today and want to take full advantage because we have two adults coming. This is another set of folks from California, and they actually are growing a lot of our plant starts. Rebecca, I don't know I'm not gonna be able to get the whole turkey in this pot. Hey, you got stuff ready? Now you're going to PT, so you won't be here all afternoon.
Yeah, I'm leaving at 1:30, and you're going right in the middle of it.
I couldn't be worse timing. She's getting serious. Day 2 of cooking. In the past, she used to do it all in one day, and it was all miserable. So y'all know it's the day before Thanksgiving for us.
Well, she's in a tank.
Y'all are seeing this, it's already after Thanksgiving. So Happy Thanksgiving. We are 2 days behind on the vlog. We shoot and then in 2 days it gets published. This is going to take a lot of salt water. You do half a cup of salt per half a gallon. It's gonna take a bit. Oh, that is good. Remember when we licked this out? I don't know if I'm going to be able to. I might be able to just hold that door. I might just be able to roll this on here. It doesn't get too— like the water's going to pour out, is it? That's raw chicken poultry water. What you working on now?
I got cornbread stuffing.
Thanks for lunch. What you working on now?
Uh, sweet potato casserole.
Sweet potato casserole in my belly tomorrow. Today we're clearing. These guys have wrapped it up, smoothed it over. Gotta wait about a week to cover it up. Temporary support. This is gonna be nice. Okay, you guys ready? Yep. This is a crew. We got Sean. Demo day. It's demo day. We're about to demo the forest, buddy.
Yep, I'm gonna clear some land.
Almost 3 hours straight we're gonna have. 2 and a half hours. There might be one interruption. John Deere is coming by, the rep. We may be signing on these machines.
Hedge trimmer for the small stuff.
Heck yeah.
Yeah, I love it.
I think we have some of that. Shawn, what brings a guy all the way from California to South Carolina to volunteer for an afternoon clearing somebody else's forest?
I need the exercise first and foremost, and, and, uh, you know, Justin has been one of the people to, uh, inspire inspire me to move out here and do what I'm doing. So any opportunity I can give back and, you know, pick his brain and learn a little bit, you know, knowledge is power.
So, man, you're gonna learn some clearing technique today, that's for sure. Kind of set my eyes on this. We have 2.5 hours above the block building, Rich Mullins. How about we go between Rich Mullins and our property line about there and just push and see how far we can go? You're getting with it. Sean, we just cleared what, 3,600 feet? Yeah, uh, maybe 3,000 square feet. What's the impossible goal? Bigger goal. We got to get 20 more feet that way if he wants the impossible. They're killing it. I'm gonna run this until I run out of fuel. Going pretty fast up there. It's some thick, briary, brambly stuff. Let's get it. He put it out, put it out as soon as I got that time lapse going. You won't even see that time lapse because it was like one shot. Maybe Dan can pause that time lapse on the screen or something. 20 minutes you left you got, Mr. Brown. So he just needed to help us for an hour and then he can go play. He's already done 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, a dozen trees. Only a dozen or so more behind us. You tired yet? I'm warmed up. Oh good, he's just getting warmed up. We just had a little timeout. John Deere guy came, I signed on it. Okay, march-ish. Got this cluster of trees here, this cluster. We got a good bit of nastiness around that block building down there that we can get up. It's about halfway mark. We've only got about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. Everybody feel good? Okay, well, we're making headway today. Fresh energy. Jonah's here. We're looking at how to make best use of this last 30 minutes. We're just going above and beyond. Hey, we went beyond impossible. Now we're asking ourselves, do we go and get the trimmers and clean up this grass and get further in? You guys worn out? What'd you do, Jonah? I saw a really pink— there you go. I'm calling it, it's almost 4 o'clock. Goodness gracious. Okay, let's do a pan down by the block building, all the way up to here, 20 feet behind me, 20 feet that way, and 100 feet that way. 3,000 square feet plus. I'd say we got 3,600 square feet. 3 days worth in one afternoon. Happy about that. Hey guys, where you been? You happy? You tired yet, Shawn? Oh no, 3 hours, you're still ready to go, huh?
Normal day's work.
Okay, good. What you got cooking now?
I'm making the sweet potato casserole.
Smells delicious in here. There you go, beautiful. There's your turkey in time for Thanksgiving. Thanks for the help today, buddy. Thank you. Is that a little smoky, Gideon?
Yeah, that's smoky.
Yes, this is the Burn It Up Cookie Show after all. Just cooked some amazing burgers. I will note those were not our burgers. We supplemented those. U.S. Wellness Meats. Now we do have one dude, Joey. Joey, Needs to be done in like a month. Then we'll be in our burgers again. But that's what we're doing. Well, that's, that's what we're doing over there. That's where we're at, guys. And that's area closest to our house that, that we're clearing in that forest. We have all that and across the street, but it's only about 10-ish acres and we need more. Uh, 2 acres will get us another cow. That could be guacamole coming up, maybe keeping Flossie too. We go back and forth on that. Eventually getting Lily a horse. So keep on clearing. Oh, thank you. But oh, I think it's sweet tea. Cheers. So I'm happy with what we did today. Winter is a time for clearing. We did 3x what we need to do in a day to stay on track, and that gives me peace going in tomorrow, which is Thanksgiving, and We can be at rest. We can just enjoy the meal. We still got to do chores. Please join us for the holiday. Uh, it's what a lot of homesteading is about. It's like the pinnacle. It's like the World Series. Thanksgiving. We grew our own turkey. It's a celebration. It's at the end of the year. It's around harvest time. It's gonna be special. I hope you guys will join us. See you then.
