Building a Homestead in 100 Days - Day 32

Day 32 of 100 Days Building a Homestead. We are behind. We're almost a third of the way behind. We need to get 2 acres cleared today. We're making change to get caught up. It's his birthday. He's got a new saw. How you like it? Yeah, it felt like the heat was working, but the heat's not quite keeping up. Honestly, I think it's working. It's just taking a while to build up the coal base, and the fire has just gone down. Takes a while every season, I think, to build up the coal base. I hope that's the problem. I think it was calling on it successfully and we were getting heat until it ran out of fuel. I hear it. 99. Okay, that's probably it. Uh-oh, it's loaded. Why is the fire not going? Shoot. I was hoping and thinking this would be empty of firewood. Yeah, it's just stacked jam full. It's supposed to be 185. We got a hold of the installer and he said our thermostat arrangement was correct. I felt like fixing that water hydrant the other day could have been a bit above my level. This, I don't even know the language, so to speak. It's way above my level. Little talk with Mr. Google Pants says error TC1, contact your dealer. Now I remember I contacted my dealer about that last year and he didn't know, and it didn't seem to be a problem because we got it working. We had a different problem last year. Now to Mrs. Boob Tube found this video from Rocky Acres Farmstead. I know I've started it wrong. I don't know if that's having to do with this. I plugged in the pump too early. Little fire starting tabs. I guess I'm not giving up that easy. If I get patient and get somebody like Randolph out here to help me, I can get going on farm chores. I can get going on clearing this homestead. But I don't know if we're gonna be able to get the dealer out here. I don't know if Randolph knows any more than me at this point. Interesting, 135. This pump shouldn't have been turned on until it was 170, so I'm going to turn that off. If it's gone up 35 degrees, that means we have a fire in there. Oh yeah, we have a fire. It's warm. That's our propane heater and AC system. That's the more we can do now. Just let it get up to 170 and then we'll turn on the pump and then the thermostat. We're in this 100 days to build a homestead challenge and if we're to clear 2 acres, tap a water source, and clear an access road, well, We're gonna have obstacles in that very work. We weren't able to keep the chain on the chainsaw. Uh, we're not able to get bigger machines till this challenge is long over. The real challenge is this— is life on the farm. Reality is we've got a gigantic homestead that still has to be ran. I asked Rebecca the other day, 'Cause I feel a lot of pressure to get this done.

I said, "Are we gonna make it?" Maybe you should go clear while we do the chores.

That's a possibility, Lillian. Thank you so much for that idea. I don't know though. I feel like this is something I want to do together. And I know that's together. Even dividing and conquering is together, but together together. Rebecca so candidly replied, "I don't think so." And I laughed. She said it's a lot and there's a lot of other stuff going on. It would be one thing if we were truly starting over on a homestead and didn't have any animals or gardens or house yet, you know what I mean? Because houses are a lot of maintenance, like the wood floor thing. But all of you have obstacles. We're all gonna have obstacles. We all have jobs. We all gonna have to live somewhere. Like, if it's not a house on the property, you're gonna have an RV or something like that. We're gonna have appointments like today, a business call at 10. 11, physical therapy. A new calf is coming at 12. A heifer, a heifer. We're getting a heifer. A new— it will be a milk cow for us. And at 1, we have Austin coming, our draftsman, to help us come up with house plans for our remodel. And that's related to the 100 Days of Building Homestead because Either you're going to find a house site, which we explored, or you're going to remodel something that's already there. Day 32, and we are not on track. We're just not. We're like a third of the way through, almost exactly. We certainly don't have a third of 2 acres cleared. We don't have a third of the water line set up. We don't have a third of the access road clear. And there's more, uh, obstacles ahead, like cold weather. And there is only so much we can do on a rainy day. Let's do like we did at the 100 Days of Growing Food and let's commit 10 hours. So 1 hour a week, aim for clearing and/or putting in water. Plus 5 hours on the weekend. Hopefully more, but that being a minimum, I feel like we could get on track. We can make that happen. What do we have going on here?

Well, I'm making the cake. I'm making his cake now.

Yay!

Which is spice nut cake.

Did he ask for a doggie cake? He's growing up. We hit the limit. He asked for a doggie cake every year and we ran with it.

I know.

Even last year?

I can't remember.

Or did it end last year? We're actually gonna have an hour and 20 minutes if this stove is heating up and I don't have to mess with it anymore. Please be higher than 148. Higher than 148. 192! It's working! Now we can turn the pump on. Why are none of these lit up? 185 is the ultimate, so I guess that's okay that it went over, but we're there. We can turn the electric hot water heater off. It being at 192 explains why the fan isn't going or anything. It's gotten up to max heat. Let's raise it to 70. I heard the thermostat kick in. Let's see if it actually works. It brings it up to temp. Let's go saw some wood and then come back and look at this. Can we finish this little patch? That would be the impossible goal for this hour-ish that we have. For Josiah's birthday, let's do it. Well, knocked you guys over. Sorry about that. Bust the LCD screen, busted the mic. We have gotten so much done though, so quick. You know why we're so quick? Look who's back. And I quickly discovered two chainsaws, no need for a third because we can't keep up with the brush. Hey, what's the problem?

Tired.

Oh, you're tired? You guys have been working hard. There's only a dozen trees left of our goal. 20 more minutes maybe. Yeah. Are you out of fuel?

No.

That's good. All right, I'll do a 20-minute haul on the saw, and you want to haul brush. You definitely want to saw— don't saw tired. I have a business meeting with my staff. I have to pull off. We got this trimmed down. We cleared that. Took a couple weeks, but we did it. We got a new cow coming. We're gonna need more pasture. Good job. How do you like it?

Nice.

Is it dull yet? No, dude. Look at this view. We're gonna have a view down into there. We're clearing down into there too. And then we gotta clear all the way through there. We'll be able to see the farmhouse, probably be able to see our house.

Is it enough to feed a horse?

That whole area would. We need about 2 more acres.

A horse doesn't need more than an acre and a half because they don't use as much as cows.

Maybe the goal is your— you just turned 11— maybe the goal is your 12th-ish birthday, or when you're 12. I mean, not necessarily your birthday, but when you're 12, because we'll have this 2 acres cleared this winter and another 2 at least by next winter. Although if we're getting machines, could be faster. I'm late to the meeting. I mean, good thing it's my meeting. I'm super happy with that progress. That is encouraging. I was chainsawing 3 minutes ago. Okay, great convo with the team. Got some good stuff coming for you, good content. Set to 70. It's on 70. Beck, the wood boiler might be working.

That's exciting.

You've been working gluten-free, grain-free pizza crust. You wanted pizza, huh?

That's what Josiah wanted.

He didn't want biscuits and gravy?

No, he's gonna have salad with honey mustard, sweet tea— he did take that— and spice nut cake for dessert.

T-minus 1 hour on the new heifer coming. Jacob's coming. We're gonna have to set this up so we're ready for him. 'Cause we're gonna have to cut him short about 15 minutes.

I know, I realize that.

Whoops. There is, we are packed today.

We have no margin.

Jacob, look at us. For once, we're on time. Trying their own chips for the chili today for our guests. Rebecca for PR. How much weight is that? That is 16 kg or 35 pounds. Take your time. You can go all the way up. What? Take your time. Nice. We just wrapped up, Jacob. We were both strong, feeling good. Uh, the cow's here right on time. I'm gonna take the afternoon off and play, or you want to go saw wood?

Make saw wood.

Oh, my boy, my boy. Okay, we'll make it happen. We got some newcomers this time. Look at this.

Thank you.

I forgot about the steer, so we're getting 2 cows today. We are quickly becoming the crazy cow people. Wow, there she is! She looks nice. What's her name? Guacamole. Oh, I like that. Her mom's name was Avocado. They gotta figure out the pecking order. She submits, guys. Is she already bred? Yeah, she's 5 months. Oh, oh, you're 5 months bred. You can even start getting her in the headlock with alfalfa and everything. Oh good. Guacamole. Look at that. I don't know if I could tell them apart. What's the new one's name? Okay, you bought him before he was born. Okay, boy, it's been that long. Yeah, he's here. Okay, look at Joey and Guacamole.

You can name him Taki.

Taco.

Taco.

She's beautiful. Showing Josh the root cellar. Hey, we're giving the 1980s house tour. I like it. Bring back the house tours. She knows. You know what I'm talking about. We don't give house tours anymore, do we? We don't. I know, we should. We should. I know, we embrace it. Just saw our friends off. My chili left. Not a lot of chips left. We literally said goodbye to them and hello to Austin, our designer. How's it going? You're already going at it? Yeah. All right, why not? Don't wait for me, right? All right, you telling him the dream?

I, I was explaining some things. So that's one of the ideas, is like blowing all this out. But then the other idea is, because, you know, I mean, that could get really expensive.

Yeah.

So the other idea is to just stay with this side being that, like getting rid of the kitchen and flopping it over there and all of that. So I don't know.

I do know that my kids want more toilets because right now it's just two, two bathrooms, huh?

Yeah, and they— that's like their biggest argument. Yeah, the layouts of these rooms are horrible. Yeah, um, that's part of our problem. We have so many problems here. But I'm sure, I have full confidence in you.

Yeah.

He laughs. He's like—

No, I mean, just the first step, like I said, is gonna be just to measure today.

Yeah.

So we can figure out what we have to work with.

Yeah.

Our apartment is in a loft of a barn and we're not using the entire loft. Well— Because wood floors are apparently very expensive. Well, this is about to even be heated and cooled, but it's, I would say it's unfinished. This is unfinished.

Maybe a relocation of these stairs. I don't know. No, I'm okay. So I'm pretty sure that they go between the joist— is that what it's called, joist?

Yeah, what you do, you just like box the joist out.

Okay, I had the idea of maybe having them go from this way down and then over like that into that room, because downstairs is— I want to, I want to, I do want to make downstairs kind of into more of a living space than just a barn.

Okay, that did not take as long as I thought. We're gonna get to live Josiah's birthday dream and do some more sawing this afternoon. It's blowing, it's 180, and we got a hold of the dealer. TC, thermal coupler. It's a temperature something or other in the reaction chamber. Doesn't seem to be holding us back here. We seem to have figured things out. Maybe I didn't let the coal bed fill up. Maybe I did— I turned on the pump too early. Let's load it. Oh, don't need it, just gonna stir it. Things are looking on the up and up for us. We're gonna do a measurement today so we can measure exactly how much progress we've gone. Hey, you having a good birthday? Yeah. What, is that the biggest tree you ever cut down right there?

Yeah.

Nice.

How'd it get out from the middle?

Okay, I would, I would start on that end. Cutting everything you can off, and then cut your lines, and then we spin it over and we cut the other side of it. Man, am I not the most fortunate man alive? The most fortunate father alive. My boy wants to saw wood on his birthday. We got that bank— well, you see how much we've done there. We got that pile, and then we got a pile over there. There's nothing more satisfying than your boys growing up, becoming a teen, becoming teens, and not being a burden but a blessing, and working side by side. Thank you. And she brings this water for like— really? Am I— have I died and gone to heaven? That was super cool, working side by side with my boys. It looks like a tree graveyard with tombstones with all the stumps. Since we're quitting early, I am going to call a tree service And see about going ahead and lining up a wood chipper.

I vote we, uh, wait to mulch it, um, in March when the mini comes. Well, when the El Salvadorians did it, they rented one and, uh, they did it. They just pushed it.

They loaded it with a mini X?

I'm pretty sure.

That'd be a lot safer too. Are you— no, no, wait, you said you're pretty sure?

Yes, you should look it up on YouTube.

I don't think they did. What, I got a shot of them doing that?

There was one guy over there.

Well, we could look it up on YouTube to see if people do it. Yeah, guys, if we load it with our Mini X, which I'm this close— I'm this close to pulling the trigger on that today. I'm seeing if he'll throw in the 3-foot bucket for free. Waiting to hear from him back on that. Spending enough money on them, I'm thinking maybe they'll do that. We still have to have a wood chipper. Let's do some rough calculations. I think we're better off than I might have imagined. This— the rectangle down here is 110 by 100. I don't know how to do triangle in the field. I'll have to go to the internet for that. Just that, 110 times 100 is 11,000. 45,000 in an acre. So let's say that's a fourth, that's a quarter of an acre. Well, not counting the triangle, so we're over a quarter of an acre. So we did 2.5% today towards the goal. If you had 100 days, you would definitely do that if you made that success. If we're 32 days into this and we've done a little over a quarter of an acre. We need to be at a third of an acre, so we're maybe a little behind. Pretty close though, but we got to keep it up. Can we do that much basically 6 days a week? I don't know. We had a really good day today, and you— and you— if you follow this, you know we've had a lot of obstacles the last few days, but we're back. We're back on track, and there is hope. How's it going in here?

It's going good.

You got your pizza sauce?

Making pizza sauce right now.

And what's in this?

Uh, sweet tea.

You see Austin off? No, he's still here. Oh cool, I see agreement, man. The John Deeres— wouldn't that be a birthday present if I signed those today?

Yeah, you should.

Now let's see if he's texting me back about that bucket. How's Avocado doing? She's doing good. She's been kind of roaming around though. We got the fence hot. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 cows shows you where our heart is. Milk and meat. Josiah, 1 to 10, how's the pizza? Good.

10.

1 to 10. A 10. You knocked it out of the park, Mom. You've been cooking all day.

I have been.

Good job. Gideon must have liked it. It's gone.

I know.

Almost everybody.

I don't think Gideon will ever guess.

Is it more of everything? No. You know what it is yet? A phone? Yep. Ooh, phone. For your audiobooks.

Oh, that's good.

You know what this is? You know what it is now? Yeah, Rhodes family tradition. They get a Leatherman full size when they turn 13. They get a trainer when they're 10. Do you have yours still?

No, they took it away at the airport.

Well, that's why we get a trainer.

I didn't even know it was in my backpack.

Yeah, I saw.

Do you see your name?

Oh, let's put our names on this.

Can I see?

Oh, I got all the parts to set it up.

Is that the right size?

We're gonna make it the right size. Yeah.

A letter from Gideon.

And a letter from me.

Happy birthday, Josiah. I will be your servant for half a day. I will also buy you a pair of dirt bike boots at Mr. Motorcycle. Love, Gideon.

Thanks, Gideon.

Best for last, Big Daddy and Grandma. Breaking out his Leatherman.

Ew!

Ooh, that's sharp. Oh, you did get chocolate. Show us. Show the camera. Cashew butter. Ooh.

Happy birthday to you.

Alright, hold on one second.

Hit me, look. Whoa! Oh, what'd you wish for?

Have a good birthday.

Woo! Did you?

Yes.

Yay! How'd the cake turn out?

The cake turned out amazing.

Birthday blessings! You go first, Mr. Brown.

He's a good big brother and he likes to play with me and he likes to swim in the river with me at summer.

I like it.

Isaiah's a hard worker and He likes to go rollerblading with me, and he's a good brother.

Josiah's a good little brother. He likes to ride his motorbike and do chores with me in the morning, and he's all around fun to be around.

Josiah, you are our quiet child, but you're the most nurturing of them all, and you are very sweet-hearted and kind-hearted. —and you're grinning very big, and I can't believe that you're 13. 13 years ago I had you today, and it's kind of crazy, but I'm very thankful that I get to be your mom.

And thank you for being such a good son. Bad times aren't just bad times. There's blessings that come from it. And we're going through a bad time not having Jonah, aren't we? It's not easy, and nobody would ask for it. What bad times give us is a chance to shine, and it shows us our real character. And what we've seen in you is a shining young man who just bloomed because you had to step up to the plate. You stepped up when we were in the hospital babysitting Henry, and then Now practically running the farm. Your true character came through. It was nice to see it. You're a hard worker and we love you.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and when Jonah got hurt, a lot of pressure was put on you, but you held it up and you turned out to be really strong, and you've been working hard. And we see it, and we're proud of you. So happy birthday.

It almost feels like you should say amen after this. Almost feels like a prayer. Amen. Amen.