Building a Homestead in 100 Days - Day 33

Day 33 of 100 days building a homestead. We're one-third through, but are we one-third through? You know what I'm saying? We're going to calculate that by the end of the video. Today mostly we're going to follow this road all the way to the end of our property line, and hopefully it's next to our water source up the hill so we can gravity feed water down to these sheep and our cows that will graze this pasture. The fan is running. I don't know if it wasn't running before I did what I did, but now it's running. We want it to run. We obviously don't want it 63 degrees in our house. So the fan's running. Let's see if we can't figure out what's wrong with the wood boiler. I hear it, it's blowing. 115. Okay, it's 116. Maybe we figured it out. I bet you it's not supposed to drop below 160 because you're not supposed to turn turn the fan on until it gets 160. Not fan, the pump. 61. Have you warmed this up?

Um, Papa, will you do that water work? I can open the lid.

Let's warm this up though. You gonna warm it up? Gideon, you haven't gotten eggs in a while, bro. They're gonna freeze out here. Good morning, Guacamole. How you doing? She walked right on over with Stud and Joey. That's okay. We would have maybe liked to try to feed her some alfalfa in a pan, but she's got 4 months till she has a baby, so we got plenty of time yet. I think Guacamole's almost 2. Picking out on the grass, that's good. Boy, she's pretty. What's the new steer's name? Uh, Rocky, Lily says. Which one is he? I can't tell them apart.

He's the one to the right.

The one to the right is Rocky and the one on the left is Graham. We're weaning everybody. Everybody's weaned but— what's this one's name?

Elk.

Yep, Elk. You could still have Flossie. 4 steers right there are gonna be sitting pretty next year. I figured we probably need about 3 steers a year. It feels warm to my cold hands. It's not.

We need to have a fire going.

65. It caught up to 65. That's what we had it set on. Maybe it's working. Yes! Why is it not heating up in there? This is on. It's running. Huh, 127. Yeah, that's nothing. Why is there no flame? In there. Call the dealer. Not available. Just called him and texted him. Let's see if we can't go get our hour of clearing in. Where I thought they'd be. We were clearing here yesterday. We talked about working on trails today, but I thought we talked about working that later. Yes, we have clearing to do in this project. We also have access to do. This old logging road leads all the way across our property, up it all the way to the end, and that's part of what we're gonna do in this 100 days is get that clear and drivable. This area is nice. Oh look, I think they've already been here and cut a tree out from across. Yeah, look, it's good to mix it up. Same pasture one day, clearing road the next. Keeps the kids excited. The rule is we need to be able to get Sally through here without hitting any branches. Good job, you already saw them big old logs. Look, this is gonna be a nice feature. You'll be able to see this creek and hear it. We got a little creek, and that's handy that we're going to clear this road because we'll get to the top of this where this creek is at the top of our property. For, for tapping water, which is our other project for the 100 days.

You know that big ditch? What about chopping that down the tree and putting the wood in it?

We could check that out. This is a washout from storms, okay? What we need to do is dig this out when we get our machine and put a culvert in. That doesn't stop us from clearing all the way to our property line though. Did you go all the way up? Let's keep going. You might make it today. You guys are halfway there. I think you went through the hardest part though, the 3 big logs. Our tape should be here somewhere. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's gone too far. That's good news, we finished the road today. That's a surprise. There's the ribbon. Here's another property line, so we can tap the creek down there. So we can clear a path to the creek. We're down to our water. It's a blessing to have water uphill from all that pasture that we're clearing down below. That's a super cool area. Look at that, look at those trees. We're probably off our property at this point. If we can find the flag on this side, I'll be happy. We are running out of time. I mean, I'll be extra happy. I didn't think we'd get the access road done in an hour. Haha, I found it! There it is. Let me stand over there and we'll look over and see if we hit it right. There's Jonah. Wave, Jonah. Nice. Okay, there's the property line. You see it now? You come straight down the hill from that ribbon to me and tell me where that is in the creek. We missed it. We shot up too high with our cutting. This is where we have to be. I would say this feature is safely on us. We kind of built the path up there. Well, we can cut it right here, and we maybe should have put it right here. Come here and look right here, Jonah. If you go up through here, it'd be super mellow. Do you want to do that now? I gotta go.

Okay.

Well, never mind, we're out of fuel on both machines. Hey, pick some of that up on your way out. Yep, you fell down right where you need to pick it up. That's good, just pile it up. I have to go to training, but I'm super happy because we cleared the access road to the edge of our property. That was a bonus. Didn't take long. We just got done training with Jacob. The heat man called me. The heat man says it sounds like we're having an air intake issue. That makes sense because when I come and open this, we end up getting our fire going back again. And yeah, it's dropped down to 140. And there's an elbow in there that maybe has gotten clogged up with soot. We're gonna do a little bit, a hair more clearing, and then let's, let's do— look at this, we've got access in. We found our water source up top. Really productive day in a short amount of time. This, on the other hand, got my front off, sucking in air here, pushing in air here. Looks like this is open, it's taking in air. Does not look clogged down in there. Nothing clogged in that elbow. It must be— I don't know, some air, you know, air is getting in here, but it must not be able to get in the stove somewhere. So maybe it's clogged up on the air intakes on the side. Air around those holes a little bit. See that hole? I don't know. It's an area. What happened? We're gonna let this fire burn out and then clean out the air intakes. I can see down through this elbow, but if I get it out Maybe, maybe I could see further. Maybe I got some chunks out of there, but the pipe's like this big. I really don't think that's it. What if I leave it cracked like that just to burn it out? What are you guys working on?

Getting the lights hooked up.

Is it working?

We're having problems.

Is it the right light for the right bike?

No.

Is there such a thing as a light for this bike?

No.

So you're gonna make it work?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, good, good. Be good learning for you. I need to tell myself that too because I'm super frustrated with this wood boiler. I know though, if I fix it, that's gonna feel like a really good accomplishment, like that water hydrant the other day. You ready to go, Birdo? Okay, he's coming. We gotta borrow Grandma's car because Mom's got to take Jonah to PT. Who's it?

Dasher.

You ever ride him?

I just ride Smokey.

Well, boys, light is still not on the motorcycle. Jonah had PT, so it's probably just that. Look at how they've cleared in there. The sheep train. Buddy leads the way. It's where the sheep are. I say next time we put the sheep in here. We're actually clearing over there and we're coming down the line, so why not encompass the sheep all up in there to get it clear for us? Coming down from the quarter acre we've cleared down through here, and the sheep will help underbrush so it's easier for us to get in there and saw. Cows' water is over and running. It's gonna be easy, the calf's right there. Just— I wanted to go to PT with Jonah. So we got a chance to do his little afternoon chore for him. Well, this should be real easy. Not you, Joey, you get out of the way. Not you, Flossie, that's your old pen. Come on, you know the drill. You're just bored and want to cause trouble. Thank you. She's fat and happy. I mean, why are you being— what, you bored too? It's her big excitement of the day, second big excitement. They don't have internet appointments. Anything like that.

No chores to do.

Nope, just eat and poop and drink, get milked, have the calves get moved. I was just starting to grill— griddle— and Josiah came, said the pigs are out. Now we're gonna move them tomorrow anyway, so you want to just put them in a net? Yeah, we don't have to separate them. Let's just get them all in the net. Winter has hit early this year. It looks like it's gonna stay around. We normally don't winterize till like at least after Thanksgiving, but I don't mind because it'll be a lot less of this. Yeah, put them in that high tunnel and in the pole barn. What we do tonight should help that go smoother tomorrow. Okay, they're not out too far. Tin's here. Somebody's in. Here comes Beefcake. Isn't he our, uh, wild card? Yeah. Here, here, Beefcake. Come here, come here, Come here. Come here, Beefcake. Hey.

Here.

That's great. So we got Beefcake in pretty easy. And who's that with him? Pound Cake. Hey, Mama. So Mama and piglets. Boy, these piglets are looking good. These guys are looking great. That's lucky. Look at that, I've gotten pigs. Oh, one. Are you serious?

There's always that one that doesn't want to go over.

Tomorrow we need to get the trailer through here, so a few, uh, trees, a few rocks. So we need to be able to pull right there with the trailer, go around and tighten the fence, get any logs off of it. They just flipped that thing. Um, we were letting it run empty so they'll be hungry tomorrow and we can better manage them, but that might be too empty and then they get ornery and bust this fence.

We need to put it on the ground or else they'll eat it all, flip it, and then—

okay, that's fine. Do we have some that's not in their poop? We don't get this out of here, they're gonna just knock it into the fence.

Yeah, I think that's why I got out.

I do too. Yeah, she's ready to be weaned, man. They don't need to be nursing her anymore. How old are they? Like three months old. Pick. Big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big pig. Look at the sunset, boys. The moment we've all been waiting for. Are we up to date with our challenge? We actually completed that one. 2-acre pasture. Horrible lighting. You cannot see that. That's just terrible. I can't do this. How come you can see it right there? Is it just the— can you see it right there? If we've cleared 15,000 square feet of pasture, there's 45,000 square feet in an acre. That's only a third of 1 acre. To be a third through, we need to have double that. So we are way behind in acreage and need to find a way to speed up. I think it's consistently putting in at least an hour a day. For water, we have found our water at the edge of our property. Now it's a matter of tapping it with a tank and then running water lines down to the pastures that we're clearing. Access road, that was incredible today because we were able to clear it in about an hour. So it's checked off. House site is checked off. So we're down to pasture and water. Those are the things you have to do when cultivating and setting up a new homestead. So we're only a sixth of, of the way there on the pasture, so we need to really double down on that. I would say we were probably a third way into the water project, easy. I still think this is possible, but we really got to get going on these pastures. That's the third way check-in. Thank you for coming along on the journey. Do stay with us. Do hang with us. It's gonna be exciting. There are obstacles in the way, but we're gonna keep pressing on and do the best we can. Aim for the impossible, and extraordinary things will happen.