In this Day 81 vlog, Victor and his family tackle a chaotic morning on the homestead. After discovering several calves have escaped through a broken gate, they improvise a rescue using umbrellas and a makeshift gate fix, successfully corralling the animals. The day continues with a broken rear windshield on the family vehicle, prompting a quick repair discussion. The core project of the day is the installation of a new waterline that runs across their two‑acre property, connecting multiple valves and testing flow to ensure water reaches the pasture. Alongside the water work, they milk their two dairy cows, manage the herd, and deal with muddy conditions caused by an early dark evening. Victor also announces an upcoming homestead design course/workshop, explaining its purpose and format. Throughout, the vlog blends practical farm chores, problem‑solving, and family teamwork, highlighting the challenges of winter farm work and the progress toward their 100‑day homestead goal.
Chapters
Is it your last PT today? It might be. Oh, what do you think? You need it? I don't know. They have tests for you? Probably. Where are they, Jonah? You said the cats got out. Right up there. Probably walked through the man gate. We didn't think about that. Oh, they're over at the old house. Well, they've just been out and about all night, haven't they? I was looking forward to bragging today about how cool it is, these winter systems, how we don't have to go out in the weather much. I didn't account for the calves because they're little getting out of the man gate down there. Probably about to get all kinds of wet. That's the man gate, but I'm not sure that's where they went out given that this gate is, uh, just busted wide open. Making a bit of a funnel here. Heard the cows casting too. Let's recruit some help. See, chores were going to be just all up in there under the pole barn roof. Hey! Oh, your rabbit's out! Oh, good catch! Hang on to it! Hang on to her! Hang on to it! Okay, where do we go? Good catch. Where's Gideon? I don't know. Gideon! Gideon, there you are. You come. You want to go with us? Josiah got you. Mom and Jonah to PT. It's all us. All right, we got everybody. That's a blessing. Everybody but Jonah. They're up there by that yellow house. They need to go down there, the bottom of our house. So hopefully we can get them down this road and have them turn right to the pen. Once we get them to turn right, we sort of had them— we sort of have them corralled. All right. Get behind them. You see the fourth one? Get in. This fence is down, so I bet that fourth calf is in with the cows. Huh. Oh, there it is. Uh, it's on the other side. I don't know why this is down. Nobody's out of here or in. If we can get them over, we've got them pretty well corralled. Thankfully they're scared of umbrellas. Now we don't want them to go through, through that gate opening. There is a— there you go, Lily! Come in, come in, Lily! Lily, come in! Come in. We got them in here. All right. Wow. Okay, we did a good job. Put these guys in a stall. Lift your umbrella up so they're not scared. Lift it way up. There you go. There you go. Now bring them. Cool. Okay, now we can go get the fourth one. I'm gonna bring the calf through this opening right here, hopefully. Can you guys kind of back up to prevent him from going out into yonder. Okay, let's go. I think he knows where— right where to go. Hey, come in, give him some pressure. Here, I'll put the umbrella right here. The umbrella to block that. Good, block him right there, Lily. Good. Good job. This gate is warped. How could I unbend this? Josiah, can you come step on that? Yeah, bounce on it. Yeah, it's working. Lily, you want to come bounce with him? Put a little more weight on it. Let me see this. All right, got it. It's just lifting you guys right up. Yep, I think it might be bending it some. Look at that! Woo! Hot dog! We saved us having to buy a gate. Better get this guy in the stall. If he gets out, he'll get wrecked. There you go. Good. Now we can work. No worries. Great little group of steers. Flossie had ran our other cow Honey through this gate. That's why it's so jacked up, but we were able to fix it. And what about that cat right there? What cat? Oh, I guess we weren't able to fix it that great, huh? How could I push that in and bend that back? No way. You don't think? I think it might put its head in and then get out. Let's see if this actually does something. Is it doing anything? What the heck? That just ripped it off. All right, we're gonna have to hope that it's not enough and the calf can't get through. Only a little bit of gap there. Just hoping they don't get their head in there and get any ideas because they could move it. Uh, yuck. Yeah, you got to dump that out with buckets because you don't want any water to get into your shed. Good job cleaning that out. I may or may not be okay with chores taking so long this morning because look outside. Have you ever seen it so dark at 8 o'clock? That means we cannot put in waterline. Exciting. That means we cannot move pigs. Exciting. We cannot clear. That's an exciting job. Third or fourth, whatever that is, priority on the list. Tidy. That's today's project. Did you deep bed the pigs? No, not yet. I've got to get material over here. I want to throw it, but I'm not going to be able to throw without getting in this barrel of water. We'll do this the annoying way. Rebecca's back. I still have not milked. It's been a crazy day. Mom has come back with a surprise. And that is a broken back windshield. Looks like there was a penetration of about that big. Might as well sweep before we put the Suburban in here. Can you see that? Missing. Look. Reason I think it's a BB— see that hole right there? You guys cannot see that in the camera. There's a little hole right there and it penetrated it, and then when y'all drove, it started cracking the glass. All right, let's go milk. We're going to get everybody out but the milk cows, the two milk cows, and then we'll carry our stuff in. What do you guys think? Okay, I don't really care where they go. They can go on the concrete, they can go in the sacrifice. They probably shouldn't though. Look how muddy it is. Let's close that off. Keep the mama cows in, let the sheep out. Everybody's so scared of an umbrella. We can keep, uh, we'll keep, uh, Vanilla in here too. Come on, we can milk. They are wasting a lot of this hay. You guys can't be picky. I'm sorry, it's all we had. I know it's not what you're used to. That's how I get them to do anything. We are finally milking. 2 hours late. She's letting you pet her? Oh my gosh, really? Can you pet her around the head? Be careful in case she comes up real fast. Oh my gosh, you're gonna be able to put a collar on her like tomorrow. Let's try. How's it for you milking in here? Good. Honey is doing great. It's like she's been milking out here forever. I'm gonna swing. Have you done this before? I did it on the other side. How are you gonna not fall and be upside down? Hang on to the rope too. There you go. Nice, nice. I would hang on to that rope tighter in case your knot came undone. Looks pretty good. Good job, buddy. Okay, it's one of those days. Oh, okay. I guess we'll open up the sacrifice area again. There she comes. You're not gonna believe this, 10:45. We usually quit by 11. I guess I really didn't clean up. Had to take a timeout, like truck leaving. Matt, our sound guy for our podcast, was here. We're trying to sort out— we're gonna launch a homestead design course workshop this month we'll launch that, help you guys learn how to plan and design your homestead. We're thinking and sorting through things if that can be like a live, like, mega event where you guys go away with a plan. The rain has let off. Let's get our water valves on there. Let's get the water going on our 100-day project. Wintertime is for clearing and expanding the homestead. That's what we're doing. It is quite possible that we get water from the top of the mountain down to our 2 acres. This could be a really big day in really just a few minutes. Look at how fast the water's running, guys. Maybe the stretch goal should be working up this lumber. Man, this is a bona fide creek after a rain like Our spring, is it any busier? It looks like it is. See, so that's not really a true spring, I don't think. There's a bit of a creek there. That's not going to be the cleanest water. This was another spring source. A dead possum. Interesting. That's running faster after the rain. Over here on the other side, we've got water coming down. This ends up over there. Let me tell you, we do not lack water here on this farm. It's a good problem to have. This, guys, normally isn't even running. Neighbor's property comes in. Culvert must still be there somehow. It's not washing over the road as far as I can tell. That's good. Let's go back to our water line project. Okay, check out our water line. It's coming down through the 2 acres. There's a connection every 100— oh wow, every 100 feet. We'll be able to service either side. And if this Everflow pig waterer works, we'll have water chores every 12 days when we move the pigs. How's it going? Are you putting the Teflon tape on? Yeah. Is my lip busted? No. Okay, it's busted on the inside. Okay, it's good. Okay, this is our last shot up. I know we have one. All right, put that one on there. Did you have to do any balls on the ball valves on the other ones. Yeah, should be coming out soon. Yeah, I hear it going through. All right, we don't need it to come out here. Let's shut that off. Hear it going through. Oh, that's a good sound! Water to the pasture. Okay, come on, man. Now we might have too much pressure down here, and somewhere we're gonna need to put on a pressure regulator. This is not leaking. And I hear water going through. The question is, is it going through successfully all the way to the bottom of this new acreage? I hear it going through that one. It's going through this one leak-free. Pull it away from the wall so we can see it. Look at that. Whoa, there it is! It's a big day. Do you guys get it? Yeah, yeah, like we have water throughout all our 2 acres. That was one of our goals. Yay! Yay! Water established, check. We've got a logging road cleared all the way to the mount— top of the mountain, check. Now we do have to finish clearing. We've got probably a quarter of an acre, maybe 19 days. And one of the big stretch goals is get pigs over here, start rooting up grass seed for us. That success just erased all the frustrations of a horrible wet and soggy morning chores.
