Building a Homestead in 100 Days - Day 15

Day 15 of 100 days building a homestead. We're setting up, we're looking for a house site. Today we're going to continue to clear potential house site, and we have 2 straight hours right here. Come here, let me see that crazy hair. Let's get it crazy. There you go, that's better. He's gonna help me edit a little bit. You're gonna edit some while we go out in the field? I've taken it from 2.5 hours down to 1.5. How many more? And don't worry, I'm not cutting like great content. I'm just cutting, uh, the dead space. Editing is a unique way of creating because it's one sense where you're making it better not by adding but by subtracting. Let me show you what I mean by cutting out. So if I want to get a shot of me getting breakfast, that beautiful one so wonderfully made, I'll set up the camera. You gotta watch. Let me get my plate. So then you cut all that beginning part and you just cut to this, and then you got it off because it takes me a minute to get over to the camera. Beck, thanks so much for making breakfast. The goal today is at least 2 hours of chainsaw clearing uninterrupted. We do have to move sheep. I do want to try this smoked, uh, pigskin and turn it into pork rinds and see if that's amazing. We got to do our regular chores, eating, things like that. Carnivore's bacon sandwich right here. Fried eggs, bacon inside. Get in, let's go. You can't go out there in shorts, it's too cold. Um, mystery package. Oh no, I know what this is. I know what this is. It's another salt on a rope for the sheep in the woods. Thank you, Redmond's, for sending me this. Or maybe something for cleaning. Just a boring old storage container. There's a chicken out right there. There's more about— it's gotten to the point where it's driving me crazy. Winter is here enough, so let's just put those guys in the high tunnel. One more chicken, two chickens. I do wonder if they figured out now how to get out of the high tunnel. It's November 1st, the day this comes out. You guys remember what that means? Fall registration for Abundance Plus, launching the Abundance Plus University inside there. For all you early birds who get in by Thursday midnight, 10% off. Holy smokes! Remember this? This was all jungle a few days ago. And now it's revealed the, uh, acorn squash that was half buried and the pumpkin that was growing on the fence. We're gonna have to come out at night when everybody's in here. I don't know how we're gonna shut them up though. We'll get something to block that door and we'll be able to catch everybody. Move them to the high tunnel.

I take care of 2 ducks for a week and they don't die. Can I get a motorbike?

Bless you, that's kind of 2 asks. You're wanting to get ducks and a motorcycle. I do see your logic though. I do see what you're saying. You'd definitely have to have a lot more responsibility in order to get a dirt bike.

Well, I would have a lot of responsibility because I took care of 2 ducks.

With Lily, just get in— we had her take care of chickens for a very long time before she could even get rabbits, which is something we didn't have that she wanted. Let's back up. Before you even get ducks, which is something we don't have right now, you need to be responsible with something we already have, which for you is collecting these eggs. Not just collecting the eggs, but putting this bar up at night. Although I don't think they go in here but just poop. Because I— do they lay eggs in there? Go see if they've laid any eggs. They're laying all the eggs over there under that brush. Gideon, since I don't think I'm ever gonna come out here and do this tomato project. Let's do one a day. Can we do that? Now you want to?

Yeah, it's easy. I have scissors, I can help.

So much for 1% change every day in here. We just did like 5 or 10%. Chickens are excited.

Papa, if I do chick— 2 chickens in that chicken's egg— okay, 2 chickens— can I get a motorbike?

I'll tell you what, no. We're gonna work before that, and you need to do something that we are— an existing operation, not a new operation. So just start taking care of these guys better, and then we'll, we'll talk about next step. I don't know what— motorbike's a long, long, long, long, long, long way away. I'm gonna have to refill this for Lily. Our root cellar project is, well, taking away from us having our hydrant back on this side. There's too much to ask Lily to carry it from the other side of the house. One thing I've noticed the last couple of years with you guys is you're an ambitious, dreamy crew, and it's absolutely amazing. You want— you're— many of you are starting homesteads, many of you want to improve your homesteads, and a lot of it— a lot— for a lot of you, it's the first time. And for all of us, there's always something to be learned. Take me for instance. My very first vlog almost 7 years ago was titled Chickens Escaping. The food growing know-how is one thing, and y'all know— goodness, you know I've done a lot to begin solving that problem here on YouTube and certainly in Abundance Plus. Fresh water, you're welcome. There's a more recent problem. It's probably always been a problem, but certainly been more urgent. Hey, why'd you lock this?

I didn't.

I don't even know how to unlock this.

I don't either.

Great. The rest of this vlog, we're, we're cleaning up the high tunnel if we can't figure out how to get out of here. No, don't go that way. Don't— you'll stretch it. You can't do it out there because this— it's locked. Papa needs to take a deep breath. I'm in the middle of telling you guys a story and we get locked in the high tunnel, and I need to milk because I need to clear land. I need to clear this 10-acre homestead. We are behind.

Jump out the window!

This ain't helping. No, I don't want to jump out the window if I can help it. Okay, I think I figured it out. Use this little knob right here. There. Yeah, okay, keep that up. 2020 happens and more— it's a rush to get into homesteading and people are getting land and people are getting started and that bug's still out there right now. Where's Sally? Lily's got her moving the sheep. People realized they needed food security. And that was— that's the biggest driver into homestead growth that I've seen in all of my 15 years homesteading. Fast forward to now. Now, am I wrong? I'm not wrong. Food prices are along with fuel prices along, and that means all other prices. Prices are going up. Look at the Seminoles mowing good. They mowed so leaving. Let's check out their manures, see if anybody's cleared up. This person's starting to clear up. That's starting to get ballish. We want to kind of get away from that more loose stuff and more towards this ball stuff. Ultima will have little milk duds not clinging together, falling out separately like a bag of marbles. You're eating and you're drinking, and my philosophy is they're going to need to make it. They're coming from another farm, they're going to need to make it here because they're going to to be our breeders. So we're not babying them too much, but we're not babying them at all. Water, daily moves, minerals— those are necessities. They're gonna have to thrive in it with their necessities. I love this so much. This lifestyle is so good. And to complete my joy, I share that with others. And my heart's desire is to see a problem You get some water? Is that enough for them? Okay, all right. That's the I can do attitude. You might not be able to carry the whole bucket, but you can carry two little buckets. I love it. So my heart's desire is to see a problem and come up with the solution for you all. I mean, that's kind of life, and that's kind of what homesteading is about, is— well, that's what I'm going to be doing all day, is just solving problems. But I want— so I want to do that for you guys A lot of times you don't see the behind-the-scenes stuff because it's computer work. It's getting on the phone with the assistant. It's filming a course, whatever. With Abundance Plus streaming platform, I said, how can we help you all? The big problems are you need to know how to do this. Many of you are picking up on that, you know, but you need to save money. Introducing Beth and Sean Doherty.

The first step that you've got to do is get rid of the image that you already have in your head of what a farm looks like, because too many people are pursuing that, and we would say that's no way to pursue a spouse.

So like people have in their heads their Fisher-Price set when they were little, you know, it's like the little farmer and the cows and pig and the chicken, the big barn and a little bit of fence, and they think there's a farm, and that's what they go looking for.

Right, and we're saying get rid of that image because the farm is going to teach you what it can do best. A second step would be to downsize. So I remember my grandfather had a quarter section, so that's what a farm was, it was 160 acres. But we're finding that the 5 to 10 acre size is a great size. We like to think of people farming on the human scale. You don't have to use tractors when you're on that kind of scale. And you can certainly grow all the food that you need on the 5 to 10 acre.

Right, there's room, there's room there for as much garden space as anybody could possibly use for a single family. And then there's that, you know, that 2 to 8 grazing acres that you need for keeping, say, a dairy animal, beef animal, maybe some sheep.

At HOA this year in October, they triggered my brain. I'd been to these people's farm before. I've read their book, Independent Farmstead, and I'm like, these people kind of— they were ahead of their time in a way. They are such a wealth of information. Their whole shtick is growing 90% of their food with very minimal exterior inputs. That sounds fancy, exterior inputs. I'm thinking of that book Fancy Nancy. What that children's book does explain— that's fancy talk. For homesteading on a budget. They know how to not only grow their own food, but grow it on a dime. You ready to go? That's today's mention of what we got going on in Abundance Plus. They're going to be at— Dan's working real hard to get you their first class today, which is how to find affordable land.

Can I buy whatever I want from the bank? Whatever I want?

You earn money, yes. But buying a dirt bike, there's too many other, uh, implications there. Well, that's probably why you're not getting a dirt bike, because you don't know that answer. You got to have more responsibility. That's just one class of 4 or 5. They're going to talk about things like the ways to, to raise— go to grow a homestead without input budget, without money, how to grow food without money. Their pigs, I'm pretty sure, are 100% from the farm. They're feeding this milk and they're feeding them all the other stuff from the farm. Great, somebody nested in this manure. Ah, looks like it was you, Flossie. Is laying in the manure a reason for culling a cow? No, she's good. We're gonna keep her a little bit. All right. Come on, come on, Joey. I mean, if it was, that'd be honoring, kind of honoring to lay in your own poop. I think she heard word that we were actually thinking about culling her because she did lose a teat to mastitis. She's getting older and she's like, I'll show you. And she started producing a lot of milk, almost 2 gallons every day. And they got a class. This was certainly probably one of my favorites because It relates to so much of what we're doing here— turning milk into cheese, butter, cream, sour cream. Mucho leche. I think I told him at least twice, the world has problems and you have solutions. I'm getting chills thinking about that. That's what they are. If I can't sum it up any better way, this whole spiel The world's got problems, they have the answers. Isn't it about time to turn off the news and build a homestead? Or even in this case, I'll certainly forgive you, turn off YouTube and build a homestead. Go to abundanceplus.com, meet the Dohertys, tap into their resources. Oh my gosh, I didn't even mention I'm throwing in their book Independent Farmstead for free, for free, $40 value for free when you sign up for Abundance Plus. Limited time, but for free, shipped to your door. A physical product. There's access to the Dohertys at every single level. A webinar— what, what happened? Boy, he melts when we start going to milk. There's brother, give him something to play with. Here, play this radio. Anyway, access to the Dohertys at every single level. Webinar November 8th, you got to sign up in time to get that Q&A. We're hosting it with them for 2 hours. At premium level, you can have email access to them for 2 weeks. Lifetime members, you have a lifetime membership to Abundance Plus, plus you get to go to the Dohertys for a day and a half. They're going to feed you, they're going to give you a workshop. So check it out, limited time. All this is, uh, all these bonuses and closing is, well, the early bird special, get in there by Thursday, but everything closes November 7th midnight. No alfalfa. It's amazing how many times I've done this. And I still forget stuff like this every once in a while. Hope it makes you feel better. I've learned that talking with you guys, showing these little mistakes, uh, you guys can definitely relate to them. And I ask myself every day, why did I order powder alfalfa on accident instead of pellets? Don't do that again. Okay, honey, pretty clean. Thanks. Well, I made a big mistake. Look at that, full of poop. I left her feed pan there, she got done with it. She stepped in the poop, stepped all up in it. I should have tied you down here. It's not your fault, you're just a big goober. Should have tied it up down here and there's no poop about. Next time. Notice how she takes a break and eats. That's not ornery. She's got a lot of good attributes, honey. You, you generally don't have an ornery attitude, but you do wolf this alfalfa down like it's crack cocaine. I'm afraid you're gonna choke sometime. She also moves the pan around like crazy, just wolfing it down. Take a breather, honey, you're gonna choke. Here's something I learned from the Dohertys, just one of so many things. Uh, I just— they take their old, their wash water, and they rinse out their pans in the field. Now that's not the wash wash, but It does prevent this stuff from getting caked on there. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Thankfully, Gideon's talk about a dirt bike cooled down, then he started talking about a go-kart. I kind of like that idea better. Safety harness. A roll cage. Wait, didn't we just get you an old train? Yeah, let's enjoy that. Then we'll worry about all this stuff, and it's gonna be a while. Hi honey, I'm home. What have you got cooking?

Well, I'm starting your pie.

That's double layers of chocolate. My birthday tomorrow. Wait, how old am I gonna be?

44.

Okay, good. I was thinking 45 there for a second. Okay, 44. Oh, put on your pie. Oh my, here, let's pop one out. Can we have one now?

Sure.

Early birthday, just been behaving myself. A carnivore.

Look, look how nicely it turned out.

But I'm jumping off the wagon tomorrow. Wow, a little bit today.

Those look so good.

Are these those pale— oh, There's a surprise in there.

Chocolate, chocolate peanut butter. It's a Reese's Cup.

Oh my gosh, a peanut butter cup. I gotta go. I got the best wife. Digging in the rice. How'd you do on the vlog? I got—

you'll see how much you got down.

You cut 30 minutes down. There was only an hour left. I feel like that's gonna be a mega vlog. You guys are gonna be liking these mega vlogs lately, like 30 minutes plus. You like those? It's 10:20. The weather is great. The rain's holding out. The lighting is amazing. What do you say I go ahead and knock out my 2 hours chainsawing now? That's fine. And then I'll edit this afternoon.

I have no problem.

I can do 10:30 to 12:30 if I make lunch. Yeah, what do you think? It's just reheating leftovers from last night. He's gonna attempt to get up this mast.

He knows, he knows how to do it.

He knows, he went and got that, didn't he?

He did.

Good boy! Good boy!

But he still doesn't understand some of the things. Here, let me help you.

I kid you not, guys, it's 10:30, I'm ready to go to the next thing, and Lily says the milk has busted in the cooler. I don't know how. That's probably a 20-minute job. Okay, yeah, that's lucky.

It isn't too bad.

We can't keep that. That. We cannot feed that to the pigs because there's probably glass in that milk. I'm thinking it's cutting into my sawing time. Maybe I'll do editing now and then straight up saw in the afternoon, but I don't know. Maybe we don't have to do that because this might not take us that long. It's supposed to be a 44% chance of rain today. That's partly why I want to get the outside work done first.

Rain possible after 2 2 PM, and then even then it's a light rain.

Chance of light rain at 2. I don't think I want to be chainsawing in any kind of rain. I feel rushed. Should I go chainsawing rushed? I don't know. Hopefully we find that glass. Well, if the glass is not in here, that means it's in that jar, and that's, that's good. That's okay because we're gonna throw that away. Good news, found the glass. It's in the cooler. What do you think about a 1 o'clock lunch? Is that too late? No. 5:30 dinner? That's fine. I think I'm deciding to clear now because it may rain. So if you were wondering why Sunday's edit was late, it's because I didn't edit it till after I saw it. I am so excited. We're gonna have 2 hours uninterrupted. I'm not sure we've had that much time before. I'm feeling very energetic. Very strong. The weather is amazing. Gideon, you wanted to see the pond?

Yeah, we never saw it.

Yeah, I know, we forgot. But here you go, you get to see it.

Isn't the water gonna be clean?

Yes, if you go look at the silt pond, you'll see. But this will be crystal clear. The muck's just got to get out of it. It hasn't drained yet. It has to reach the, the top of the pipe right there. We're talking about prepping 10 acres. That's— it would shoot up from about right there, up and then over. Now, not all that is clearable because we're only clearing 30% grade or less. We want access roads, we want clearing, we want water. All that within 100 days. We got 85 days left. Can we do it?

We're behind.

That might be— that might be a key. The excavator and the skid— the track loader. Early on in these 100 days, I'll be honest, we're still trying to find our house site, and that's so important. We're clearing some of our favorite house sites, and it's not the end of the world if that doesn't end up being it. Because that's going to be pasture anyway. We did that, what, yesterday, day before? We keep clearing a higher view so we can kind of get an idea of what's going on. We could go broader in our view, or we could go higher up today. What you want to do? Okay, this is big potential for a house site. This could be the makings of a driveway, house right here, view of the lake. We really kind of need that. We can't just do the edge here, we'll just have a view of the barn. That's not what we'd be most excited about here. You want to clear from this ditch all the way down in 2 hours? Sure, I love it. Okay, it's impossible. Let's go for it. That ditch is like 50 feet up through there. I think I felt a drizzle. Let's get this on. Sawed on one side of this log. I need to turn it over. I can't do it by hand. I need the PB. 1 hour left. I'm not sure we'll get beyond this. I know how to flip it. You do? I think the PB must mean for bigger logs. You're still pulling it on yourself. So I just keep pulling it on myself. We've already sawed. We keep going, the weight of this is going to pinch it when we start cutting that away. Same thing if you go in from the bottom. Straight on in from the bottom. The trick is come in from the bottom a notch over. Let's do it. Now see if you can roll it over. That's it, boy. It's getting pretty up here. I'm gonna leave the stumps. If we get a mini excavator, we can pull those out better with the stumps there. We're gonna I'm gonna also use that for getting this out of there. It's just too dangerous to go out there and try to cut it. Before, after. We just wrapped it up. 2 minutes to 1. We got going. I think we found a flow. I think what we're gonna do— and it's extremely satisfying, at least for our souls We're gonna work up— I'm tired of walking around and pointing the camera and stuff, so I'm gonna try to stop doing that. We're gonna work up things about this size or smaller. This might even been a hair big because I feel like those stumps we can easily mow over in the future. The animals can get over it. It's trees like that that are— take a while to work up and probably should get the roots out. So we need to save that for the mini excavator. I forgot this workflow, but you're supposed to get the small stuff first. How about we go through like we did and just get that little— the little stuff. Might even leave this for the excavator, but get that, that, that, all this little stuff, and then you've cleared and you can come in with your excavator and get something like that. You've got everything out of your way. Yes.

You can tear little trees easier with a little excavator.

Ah, yeah, whereas I think these little tiny trees would be annoying on an excavator. I'm looking for satisfaction and work, and it was miserable working these big trees. It didn't feel like we were making success. It was so much more fun to get these little ones. The goal was that ditch. And these trees to that tree. So we didn't make goal. Look at the progress. You guys see the future? Heck yeah, that looks good. Could this be our driveway done one day? I don't know. We got the passive solar guy November 2nd, and I feel like that's going to be a definitive day about where our house is going to be. It's nice. It's a nice driveway. Lily said at the end— she— and this is after 2 hours of them hauling brush— she said, I'll remember this. She said, I'll remember building this homestead with everyone. Didn't you? What'd you say exactly?

I said I'm gonna remember building the house and clearing for it.

That's right. Okay, that's the goal. Yes, we've won. We may not be going fast enough. We're gonna have to figure something out. We're gonna have to amp this up somehow. Uh, but in my book, we've already won that comment. With lunch destroyed, I'm gonna edit and hopefully have enough time to maybe take an hour of rest. I didn't really rest this weekend because the party and everything. Tomorrow's my birthday. Would you come? Come celebrate my birthday with me? That would be great. The kids offer—

Hold on a second, he wants to hold it himself, but he's gonna spill it everywhere.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! No, no! Oh God, why is he getting so crazy?

He wants to hold the cup, and we've been letting him hold the cup a little bit, but maybe let's pour a little bit out.

Okay, you can hold it. No, no, you can hold it.

We're gonna give you the cup. Sit down.

Here comes the cup.

Here we go. You can have the cup.

Goodness. Okay, you have it. The kids offered to do chores for me in the morning. What I'd rather happen is get up, get the small animal chores done by light, so done by 7:30. We can milk real quick. And then 8:30, 9:30, 10:30. 2 and a half hours to Jake. I got that code from my assistant, guys. Fall 10. Put in Fall 10 till Thursday. We're going to give you 10% off of Abundance Plus. That includes Abundance University, all the documentaries, all the stuff. Accesses to the Dohertys. Do check that out. AbundantPlus.com. Limited time offers, bonuses, all that kind of stuff. Get in fast. Early bird special till Thursday midnight. Fall 10.