BUTCHERING BEETS

Master bathtub getting placed today. We got to get it upstairs. Happy day! Welcome to another day in the life. And what do we do? What are we about?

What do you mean?

You haven't gotten the memo yet? I'll give you a hint. We're harvesting beets today and eating beets today. We are growing what we eat and eating what we grow. We were terribly overexposed, sorry. We are making the connection from the garden kitchen to the septic, and we are getting up beets today. All right, that'll work. We're not only going to get them up, but we're going to preserve them. How did he get out? What counts is the calf didn't get to mom. That's good. There's the breach, fell down right there. Happy Happy day, Vanilla! Happy day! Blaze has figured it out, huh? Sheep know it. We herded everybody over to today's paddock. Save the milk cows. You got some more colostrum for me today? Hopefully mucho colostrum. Hopefully lots of colostrum. Are you taking all the colostrum? I'll milk Honey if you'll milk Vanilla. I'm gonna give it to your sister. Hey! Here. Hey, she loves her. She's on her baby more than she's on this feed. Come on, here, honey. Come on. See, she will never sit still if I try to milk her in the field. We got to get her in the gate. Come on, good girl. So I would like to get more than 2 cups of colostrum like we got yesterday, but I'll be thankful for anything. Be given that colostrum poo poo. Look, she's still in colostrum, yellow poop. I've seen this morning and every day because we're moving the cows every day and milking them in the field. The scene changes every day. Probably a little over a quart, I guess. Not quite as yellow as yesterday, but more. So I guess her milk's starting to gradually come in. Yesterday's colostrum, half a gallon raw colostrum. Pretty sure you can't even buy this if you wanted to, and if you could, it would be very expensive. Hey, no! Mom had those hidden for a reason. Mom had those hidden for a reason. Here, have some raspberries. Well, that's one way to get the tub in here. Cast iron tub. We got the tub in place with a couple of straps and 4 strapping men. Uh, we got about 12 minutes. You want to go do a 30-minute job real quick? Harvest those beets.

Justin Rhodes special.

Justin Rhodes special. Aim for the impossible, kiddos. Aim for the impossible and extraordinary things happen. We're in luck, it's there exactly where it's supposed to be. I'm gonna get Henry cart and go at it. 25 feet of beets. I'd like to do this before the heat of the day, before appointment. Mom's gonna have to cheer us on. She's ready for town. Yeah. Okay, well, never mind. They mean they need me to move the tub again. Lily, you want to harvest these beets? You can try out your tub. Yeah, I think I can fit in there with you.

Maybe.

We've been taking baths together every night, but we didn't plan for that over here.

No, we didn't.

Real tight.

You're not as relaxed as I am.

It's a nice deep bath. Look how deep. This is why you'll get your whole body in.

This is why I went with this tub. Yeah, it's ridiculously heavy and it was crazy price, but—

oh, they're working on it, Beck.

Let me see. Who is it? It's Lily and Gideon and Henry.

Or they're in the carrots. Oh, they're in the carrots. That's an island. I've never seen such a big island. You know, this is a pinch, you know. Boom, this, this, this build. But this is gonna accommodate a lot of people. We're gonna be the center family community.

I want— I mean, well, that's my vision, is for the kids to come here, the kids and all their spouses, for them to live here one day. One of them live here with their families.

Whoever's gonna have the biggest family gets to live here, and whoever's willing to host everybody.

That's it. Part of it is that they have to be willing to I mean, I don't know, we'll see what happens. I mean, we might live here for a really long time. Yeah, we might live here after, after all the kids are gone.

Oh my goodness, hey, Josie's here! We can do it! It is 9 o'clock. I wanted to quit right now. It's okay to harvest the carrots, but don't, don't get any more. Let's have a plan for it. Look, that's an excellent— Greg, Becca, good job on the carrots! Let's get the beets, bud. I was hoping to have a little margin before we go to town, and I gotta cook the— get the brisket going. Potato! Look at that potato.

I found a potato, honey.

Don't need to buy beets anymore. I just got to this. You guys to see our school. That is a grown man, the plumber, directing my 14-year-old son. That's what they need to grow up and know how to do— work and work with other adults. So proud of him. What a What a guy, what a guy. All right, get beefcake, son. Do you like carrots?

Yeah, look, eat it, boy.

He's not so sure.

He doesn't see it.

Oh, he knows he doesn't want it. Nope, nope, nope. Beet greens in the pork. Don't give me a hard time about throwing away beet greens. I know you can eat them, but why would you eat them when, when, when he can convert them into pork. He actually likes them, huh?

He's on a diet too.

Let's get the mama pig some greens. That's a bushel of beets.

We have beets.

That's several weeks.

We have beets. We got months of potatoes.

Look at those potatoes though.

And then we have some—

hold that big potato up, Lily. Let's have that broccoli and those potato— that potato tonight with our carrots. Mmm, we're gonna have a stud muffin brisket tonight. Rebecca went and started it. Okay, let's get transitioned. We gotta go in 15 minutes. Whoa, he does eat a beet!

He wants to say that.

Wow, a raw beet!

Can I see what one he wants and what one he'll pick?

Sure. Oh, he went for the beet all day.

Okay. Oh, the carrot! Oh, the carrot one!

We could test food with him to see which one would be better for us to eat. He's definitely going for the beets. I think there's something to be said. Annie has our setup for these beets. It is beet butchering day. She's got the water boiling. Internet says boil it for how long?

25 to 30 minutes.

And then of course we need to let them cool off before we peel them.

So I've got ice in the cooler.

Okay.

So we'll flash them.

Hey, stop, stop. I don't want you playing with those right now. Ice in a cooler to cool them off. If the internet says boiling will make it easy to peel, gonna dice some, and then we're gonna need to flash freeze them. So get in, let's go get our trays. How's the beet butchering going?

Uh, great.

You've got them boiled? Boiled and boiled for 25 minutes.

Well, because they were smaller, I did 50. I'm glad I did 15 minutes because I pulled them out and they were tender.

Whoa, was the internet right? It's boiling. I'm gonna make it easy to peel. Wow, done! Internet was very right. Go at it, kids. I guess pull them out of the water, bring them over to the pig bucket. Rebecca, wait till you peel one of these things. Okay, we're gonna leave them to the beats. We see the tile guys here. Yeah, I think that tub's getting set. Dar, propane's going in. 1,000 tank back, gallons back. Have you seen your Sink yet? It's so nice. Sink times 2. Holy moly, what are we gonna do with ourselves?

I'd have had 2 dishwashers.

All is well with the tile and the plumber guy. Did you guys get all the beets out? Yeah. Bill, you take a couple of those trays over, freeze them. What's the instructions?

You cut them?

All right, yeah.

Yep, you cut the where the stems were and just like where the roots are.

Yep.

We did it. How many trays of beets did we get? 3 trays? At least 3 full trays.

I think you were right to call it Butchering day because, you know, you got the blood of the beets on your hands.

We're gonna flash freeze these. It's been an hour. We— these are frozen as is in the tray. Then we're gonna flatten it out. Oh, yes. Go ahead, go for it. Now, because they're frozen— yeah, sure. Now don't, don't give it to beets. Oh boy, let's see. They might not be frozen hard enough. If it sucks the juice out, we're in trouble. Leave it until it beeps. Okay. All right, we're sealed.

Oh, it's so—

wow. We have to do them at the bottom or the juice will come up and block the seal. They're breaking the seal. They all broke, didn't they? Uh, all right, yeah, let's just put them back on the tray. We'll freeze them overnight. They're not freezing as quickly as those broccoli So these are not frozen enough. They're still quite soft. The vacuum seal is pulling the juice off of it. It's pulling it up and blocking it from sealing. These work because we just did a few and we put them in the bottom. So when I went to bring these beets back, felt these other ones. Yeah, they're hard as rocks. So I think they were just melting on the way over there. We got no room to film in here. Do we have a light? It's a Jerry Light. Then, uh, let's do it. Let's try it. Well, we did it. There's a bunch of beets. Looky here, beets from the farm. Lily, you can't put glass on the burner, just in case. Some more asparagus. We won't need to be buying any more vegetables. Tell me you're cleaning up your vegetables.

Tell me you're committed to paper plates.

Help me! We were taking some shortcuts. Living in this 700 square foot home, doing a house build, growing our own food. We got a brisket from Stud Muffin. Put a little juice in it, salt after cutting it up. Potatoes from the land. How's your headache? Oh, it's getting better. You're gonna be back to work tomorrow? I hope so. All right, we're gonna get in the bed early. How are you, little wild man? Yeah. Oh, you huggy, you're huggy. You know what came— comes in clutch, Beck?

What?

In the past, every time we got a harvest, like all those beets, we're like, well, we gotta eat beets breakfast, lunch, dinner. Now we just harvest and preserve day one, and now they're super fresh.

Yes, purple!

I got the blood of beets on my hand. The beet butchering went excellent today. Happy day.