In this Day 45 vlog, Justin and Jesse walk viewers through a busy day on their homestead, covering several practical projects. They start by discussing a sprouted‑grain feeding system for their 33 chickens, detailing bucket preparation, grain quantities, and the need for a track loader and excavator to move feed. They show how they involve their children—Lily with a Sawzall, Jonah and Josiah with chainsaws—in tool use and chores. The pair then explain their winter‑garden strategy using UV‑treated silage tarps, covering the benefits, challenges (wood‑chip availability), and how the tarps suppress weeds and aid early transplants. Next, they describe setting up a gravity‑fed water system by tapping a creek and installing a water tank. The vlog continues with land‑clearing on a steep slope, decisions about tree retention based on gradient, and creating a small paddock. Throughout, the tone is informal, instructional, and family‑focused, with moments of humor and enthusiasm. The video ends with the family reviewing the day’s work, celebrating the kids’ contributions, and planning future steps.
Chapters
Now we got red light, light bulbs, flicker-free. He's so busy. I don't remember any of the other kids being that busy. Of course, we're probably older and more exhausted. Wait, why is sometimes it— oh, there's 3 levels. Go to that middle one. I think that one looked the best, or maybe it was the blue light. Yeah, there you go. Keep it on that one. It's a lot easier to film. I'm looking at all this and I'm thinking, well, I know we're the crazy stainless steel people, but maybe we're the crazy cast iron people too. Our stainless steel plates. A fan actually brought us these from India and they knew where the crazy stainless steel people— lifewithoutplastic.com. Not an ad, just I've been asked enough. What if they get mixed up? Well, then it's weird. You just got to make them all go to the same— they're all in the same right here. That's kind of cool because we tried those, uh, blue blocker glasses. You bet. Yeah, right, we're gonna wear glasses around in our house, especially kids. Ah, I remembered I need to let Lily Let me feed this sprouted grain to the chickens tomorrow. I'm trying to figure out if I should— if it's worth it, if I should just start ordering whole grains. I know a lot of you are saying, well, you can grind it, and I definitely do know that we could grind it ourselves, but if time is money and time is valuable, then you got to consider that, uh, it takes more time to grind it yourself. Is it actually worth the savings? There's absolutely no eggs in there. Of course, there's nobody in here. We've moved them all into the high tunnel. I just thought maybe there would be some residue. Oh snap, really? This door is open, but nobody seems to be out. They're nice and clean when they lay in this. The only thing I can figure why they didn't get out is it's frosty air. I hate that. Can I do bigger stuff now? Got Lily some wood blades for her Sawzall. Oh boy, you gonna ride a dirt bike when you're older? That's good. I like that answer better than yesterday's. Watch. Everything's sprouted but the grain— but the corn. But I think the corn got soft enough. Corn's got to be 55 degrees, probably not that on a cold day like today, even though the furnace is running. You get me the big bucket? Hear that? Can you carry this big old bucket? Yeah. We want to test it while they're hungry. Can you tell, Lily? Are they picking around it? They're not gonna eat the corn after giving that many days to sprout. I don't think it's gonna be worth it. Let's come back after chores and feed that, and by that time we'll be able to tell if they've just picked through that corn or if they're eating the corn. Got a bit of housekeeping to do a little bit later. We'll talk about the winter silage tarp garden plan for keeping your gardens nice rest over the winter. But first, we got some chores to do. Whatever happens, do not let this chicken out. I'm done with these chickens being out.
Let it go into the cage, that's even better. Oh, it went past 3 people!
Maybe we can corner it in there.
Oh, it's in the chicken coop!
Well, that's easy. Yay!
I got it.
Grab him a treat while we're heading down there. They're rotten. They love it. Oh, all the, all the more easy for them to eat. No corn. Come here and check this out. So now we're gonna get the, the sprouting system going, okay? We gotta get some food-grade buckets, we gotta drill some holes in them. There are 33 chickens. 11 pounds is what they need, a third pound each. Because we're soaking it, it goes a little further. Let's say 10, so we only need 10 pounds. Probably need even less than that. You have one bucket, you soak it for the 24 hours, then you pour it into the other bucket. It's got holes in it. You rinse it off, then you keep doing that until you have, I don't know what, 3 sprouted buckets, maybe 4 because it's so cold. That's really not that much. I mean, but 10 pounds for me might be different for her. She's pretty tough. This is a real pain. Fill that up with water and then haul it into here. Makes me wonder, how could I get the grain in here? Well, it could come in that way. Now we need a machine that can haul the grain, which— I mean, we just ordered a track loader and an excavator. The boys think they're coming in March, and that's true of the excavator, but the track loader is coming in January. It's gonna be a big surprise. Well, that will help us. We'll have forks on that and we can move that feed around. Somebody asked me, how do you get your kids involved? Get them tools they're excited about. She with the Sawzall and the wood blades, and Jonah and Josiah with the chainsaws. How come this gets so foggy? I don't know. I can't barely see. Today, let's see if Guacamole the heifer will eat out of my hand. If I can hold the pan. I won't look. That's new. That's new. So what we're going to initially need to do is reach around her neck while she's doing that. Well, she'll need to be down here eating, and we'll need to be able to do that. Real friendly gal, real friendly. You're real friendly, you're real friendly, you're real friendly. See, see, you ready? Cover the garden?
Yeah, sure.
All right, I had to get a coat on, it's cold. Silage tarps, the gardening game changer. Now make sure you get a UV-treated silage tarp. We are not just using any old tarp. Those shred, there's leach. You got to get UV-treated silage tarps from Johnny Seeds or Farmer Friend. I know my permaculture buddies out there are saying, but the plastic, the plastic. It's with us for 450 years. Well, yeah, it's with us for 450 years. It lasts. It does. I was hesitant to use plastic at first also, and maybe cover this with— I mean, but cover this with 8 inches of wood chips for the winter, that's a lot of wood chips. And not everybody can get— our wood chip source dried up, and I know a lot of other people, a lot of yous, can't get wood chips either. So how No, it broke out again!
They broke this wall!
Shoot. Well, there went that. I had my hesitations too until I tried it and I pulled it up after it'd been down a while. Look at all that vermicomposting and worm activity. The worms love it. And because this keeps weeds at bay until we're ready to plant, you just pull it up and put your transplants in and you're off to the races, 4 weeks ahead of the ahead of the— because you're buying plants at 4 weeks old and putting them in there, you're 4 weeks ahead of the any weeds that would come up, and you end up growing so much more. Lily, we'll forget that. Let's get the pigs out and then we'll go let you cut something. They left the T-post. What are they doing?
They push this out this time.
What?
This?
Okay. Yeah, somebody in the comments said they'd break a steel ball. Here he comes. Let him in. Let him in. Come on, come on, get your, get your big board ready. Okay, come on. Okay, oh, this T-post go way further in there. Secure that better. The metal zip ties. Okay, we can just wrap that like crazy. Just cut a bunch of those pieces. There it is. If you bring that whole spool, we could just wind it around it a bunch. What do you think? No, I think, Jesse, maybe— wow, that'll get it tight. What we might have to do is long term put big old poles in, deep holes in the ground. Here, here, pay attention, pay attention. We're gonna leave the garden. It's more important that Lily gets some work in before her lesson. What I was saying though about that is because we're more efficient and we're growing more food, even though we're using plastic, there's not as much food going on the trucks getting hauled all the way from California, who knows where, to get to us. Granted, ideally after the growing season, I would have pulled up all the produce, put the sod starts down for a couple weeks, killed all the weeds, and then planted cover crop like we did here in these raised beds. We got to it in the raised beds. We did not get to it in the crop garden, so we used Silas chirps all winter. You got your stuff? Yeah. He's showing you how to change it out. Yes. Okay, I think you're gonna have much more fun with this. Okay, grab you a helmet, Lily.
Yeah, just—
I'll take her. She'll get a good chance to get started. You'll catch us. Okay, we're thinking getting Lily around— there she is— around these rhododendrons, around this huge pine tree. I'm just so pleased with this. This is just a little bonus section over here I didn't even think about. Look at this meandering creek. It's gonna be just a beautiful little feature running so clear. I've lined up a water tank. We're gonna tap the, the top of this creek on the top of our property. We're getting Eric back out, the spring guy. Help us, and we're gonna have gravity-fed water over here by the end of 100 days. Maybe come get some of this stuff you didn't want to get yesterday because of the dullness. Okay, don't saw like this, saw like this. Okay, see, so the metal always rests against the, the limb. Yeah. Oh wow.
Yeah.
Yeehaw! All right, clean around this pine tree, honey. She got around the pine tree pretty good. There's a couple of here she couldn't get. She's excited, and that filled her little heart up. What's interesting— not too steep. Too steep unless you're the Doherty. It taught me a lot. I would have said that's too steep. That's too steep. It's probably over 45 degrees, but there's this trail here. Yeah, that leads to just more Too steep. Kind of mellowing out right back in there. What happens if we keep going down this trail? Well, we started to mellow out right here too, and now look, we have this whole nook. This bonus, albeit small, maybe 1,200 square feet. That's something. That's a half-day paddock. So anything over 30 degrees, I am going to keep in forest. I'm not saying I won't clear it out a bit. I won't say I won't get some of these rhododendrons out so some sunlight can hit the bottom. We can grow some grass. Maybe I'll keep 70% trees in the steeper areas, and anything under 30% or less, we're keeping 30% trees. The boys have cleared all the little stuff from this patch. Now they're wanting to go after these trees. I will admit there's something feels really good about down in a tree. There's an adrenaline rush or something. All right, get out of there. Woo! I like your bear, bro. Good job. It's quitting time. You guys satisfied? Two big trees down and worked up. Easton Steel Company. Don't tell me it's a metal chicken.
I ordered an ornament for you, Justin, but it's not in here, I don't think.
What kind of ornament would I get excited about? This is Vince. Do I really? Oh, I love you.
Okay, so I saw that and I thought of you. I saw that as an ornament. I thought that's some perfect—
that's fun. All right, the boys have cleaned up their room. Oh look, does Mom know about this? I love the, the name, the chainsaw decoration.
You guys didn't do a terrible job.
You did a good job, guys. Somebody else has been busy.
I got the, uh, lights on the tree and then we'll decorate at some point with the kids when they were really wanting to do that with me. So I got my garlands up.
