Chickens Are the Answer for This Garden Bed

Grandma's fishing for something on our roof. We found some spoons.

Yeah, but I can't get it.

One there and one there. Don't climb out there, you crazy. There's, there's 3.

Yeah, I got 1, 2, and there's the 3rd. I'm not gonna get it.

No, it's wet. Across from the spoon debacle, we have a raised bed that, well, we could apply it permaculture principle. We could have an animal do the work for us. Let's get on it. This is all weedy, needs to be tilled in. Wouldn't hurt to have a little fertilizer. I got the perfect solution. Josiah has us fixing his guard on his string trimmer. It's loose. That's some star bit. Told y'all yesterday about my tool, my hidden tool stash. I think I have a star bit set in that. Hi baby, Jonah got you this morning. The golden moment from Jill Salatin's book: never walk in a straight line. Which, on the way in, I grabbed some of these from the tool cabinet, and why not? Why pass something that needs to be done? Why pass a sock that's on the floor? It's— I'm kind of making it meandering. I'm kind of making my way down there. Actually, this goes— this goes to their room. Look, a Lego. Why not pick it up? Now I'm kind of doing a little detour, but it's actually more efficient in the overall grand scheme of things. May not be most efficient in this moment. The car seat could be put over a little bit. Look, there's a little trash here. Put that in my pocket. Whoever thought that a straight line wasn't actually the most efficient. All right, now my toolbox. I thought I had— I don't know if I put it in here. I've had it. I'm looking for the star bit set. Do you know where that is? It's black. It has all the different star bits in it.

That star bit— are you looking for that star bit from yesterday?

No. Well, there's a regular one. Oh, that's a— that's Allen key.

Yeah. Oh, but you have a star bit one?

Star key.

Really?

Yeah, we did know that. I wasn't sure if I ever even put it in there. Trash here. Why not do a little zigzag back down to look for this bit or to look for something else? Joe started off that section of his book with, how much time do we spend on our farms looking for Tools or supplies? Oh, hit me right to the heart. Hit me right to the heart. You got me. You got me. I went, I went out of my way to put this trash bag. You know, there's the house. I would have went straight down. Now, if this is maybe as a big hurry, you wouldn't do that, but I came that much out of the detour. But if I did a dedicated trip to take the trash, then it would have been the entire trip would have been an extra trip. Do you see? So it does make sense. It's gonna have to be a new habit though, and they say you have to do something for 66 days for it to form a new habit. So here we go. We got an Allen key, but that's not gonna do it. Now until we get a key, maybe I can gird up my loins and twist it on with with my pliers. Well, the chicken tractor is gonna have to wait. We gotta milk. Cows don't care about the chicken tractor project. Thank you, Josiah. Oh wow, it didn't help much. We pulled up, but then we're in another turd. At this point, all right, well, I'm thankful for this tin right now. It leaks because it is kind of raining pretty hard. Well, it leaks, but it's not getting as wet as we would be getting. Kind of is raining, actually. Yeah, Haroon took over. It's almost easier to milk with two hands, isn't it, Haroon? It's like a balance or something, as opposed to milking with one hand. I've done it. I've broken my hands and had to milk two cows with one hand for at least six weeks, so I would know. It was a relief when I could have both hands back because it's a balance. It's not my hands now, it's the squatting. Oh yeah, that's good. Ah yeah, that gets that, that limit. It's limit. There's a limit right there. All right, I've done like 10 of those things. Watch. I think I got more flexibility there. Helps to hang on to the pole because I can put as much or as little weight on my legs as I want to. I'm going all the way down. The question is, can I do it without the pole now? That's to milk the cow. I could bring it— oh, I used to have that one-leg stool. I think that's long gone. It's a broken— that would work. If I can't be milking the cow, I can be working on what's preventing me milk the cow. So while he's doing that, I think I'm gonna get back on the pole. And just keep going to slight pain. I see you ironing my shirts. Thank you very much. I see Grandma cream separating. I'm gonna go ahead and filter this out, and we're gonna make yogurt today too. Lily, do you want to go ahead and get a waterer and a feeder for this chicken tractor? We're gonna put— what do you want to do, 3? Let's do 3 chickens. I just put 1/3 cup of yogurt for a starter per half gallon, so I did 4 of them. Next, I've heated this up to 100. You want to go to between 100 and 105. If you go too far, it's not raw milk anymore. We're going to keep this a raw milk yogurt. Definitely keep it under 120. Put the yogurt in the dehydrator not to dehydrate it but to just keep it at 105 for 7 hours. Covered it with a towel to keep it dark. All right, we got 18 minutes to Jonah's lesson. I need Jonah. He's the strongest of the kids. I need you for a moment, Jonah, to put this chicken tractor on the tractor. Oh boy. All right, I'm just gonna suck it up. These pants are dirty and need to be changed anyway. Let's just get them wet. Oh. Well, we got this over here. I don't think I can carry that by myself. Jana had to go do an online lesson. Harun!

You need to say it louder.

Hey, before you go, can you help me with the tractor? While we're waiting on him, let's, uh, look at these luchadors. Well, they're doing one thing I was afraid they were gonna do, and that's step on our tarp. They couldn't be any more on our tarp right now. It does look like you guys are having a way with the garden, taking your sweet time though. So let's put it right over there on that raised bed with all the weeds in it. Yeah, you help Mr. Brown. Josiah, will you open our gate for us?

All right, let it go.

Is that good? Just— I ain't getting— we catch us 3 chickens. Are those them? Yeah. Nice. Our custom shims, thanks to Arun for putting them somewhere. Everything has a place, right, Arun? Yeah. Nice. You're gonna see chickens transform this garden bed. They're gonna till and they're gonna manure, kind of like our sheep. Well, sheep aren't gonna till, but they're mowing over there. Our chickens will actually mow and till. Got about a pound of feed. That's what one— that's what 3 birds need. All right, go ahead and put that in there. You catching them, Mr. Brown? You got one, Josiah? 2 to go. Lily, can you catch a chicken? You didn't got one. Lily, grab that one, it's in there. Look, it's right there, it's just asking for it. There you go, good job. We're just gonna put 3 in there because it doesn't take them long and we're in no hurry. Give them some grain to supplement. There you go, Lily, thank you. Put the tub in there upside down. We're going to keep it elevated so they don't get it all nasty. Grab the water, Mr. Brown. Can you do it?

Get the water.

You're asking me to do these chores? He wants these guys. Can he have these chores, Lily? Okay, well, it's all you, Mr. Brown. Can you do it? Good deal. It would have been easier just to, just to put some tarps down, but there was so much green in there. And there's just something feels just so right about this, having the animals do the— do this work, as opposed to a piece of— I mean, we'll eventually put a plastic over it, but look, there's, there's food for them. And you know, we could have weeded it and throwed it over like we did for a lot of this, but there's just something so right about giving these guys something to do, a different scenery. You can't forget the holy chicken. Holy chicken squat. Fertilization that I don't have to handle. I don't have to shovel. They're all just gonna— it's just gonna all be there. They don't like Teddy. Who's getting micro polyface today? Shout out's coming. You want to shout somebody out, mister?

Mr. Henry.

People's lives are changing.

People are getting good.

People have gone over the precipice. They're saying, I'm taking control of my own life, I'm gonna homestead, and Joel Salatin is gonna teach me the way. Shout out to Jen Merrill. Rebecca, if you want to show her Instagram post, that's fine. Sweet lady got, got some— got a Polyface book from us, said it was like Christmas. Jen, it's gonna— it's— you're so right, it's gonna be Christmas. For years upon years because you're gonna have benefits that last for the rest of your life. Let's turn the lights on. Life.

Life by Jen Merrill. And then Lazy Acres New York and Lazy Acres NY also posted that they got our book.

Nice. Thanks guys. One thing Jen said was that it's fun to watch our family pack up these boxes thinking, I'm in there somewhere. I'm next. I'm gonna shout some people off. And I'm going to quote a book. No, I'm going to quote from the book just for you, just a random quote that I underlined. It might make sense, it might not. This could be fun. We might have enough for today's shipment right there. Do you think we need to make some more?

Well, we might need to make some more for tomorrow because it's nice to have some.

Yeah, and they're about to start selling again, you know, as we get closer to the end of the month, to the bonus webinar, October 3rd. They're going to start selling again. Um, 10% off. We just announced that, so get ready, Becky. This is gonna be interesting. Rhonda, first up. Rebecca is packing your package right now. I hope you're watching, Rhonda, because there it goes. Give me some other names while he looks it up. Paul, Jennifer, Paul and Jennifer, and Jeff. Well, Jada, Jada and Jeff. Tell me when you got one, Josiah. Boy, you went right to the front. You point, point to it so I know what it is.

This one.

Here's a quote for all you lovely people that I just listed: Planning is what makes operations go smoothly. Business gurus define this as WITB, working in the business versus working on the business. The easiest thing in the world is engross ourselves in our projects. The hardest thing is to question if these projects are important. So good. We're talking about priorities, making sure we have a goal and make sure we're going at the most effective things.

Another Rhonda. We have two Rhondas.

Rhonda will give us the last initial. W. This one, Rhonda W. And the other one was Rhonda. Is this a fun game? Do you guys like this? Josiah, any, anything? Rhonda M. Anywhere in there.

Rhonda N was the first one.

Rhonda N. Okay, who else we got? Shirley B. Shirley B. Catherine B. Catherine B. Matthew S. Matthew S. Josiah's digging through the original manuscript there. You got something, Josiah?

Yeah, this one.

Okay, hopefully it makes sense. Who knows where this could go. It's always cheaper to dribble water to a high point and let it gravity feed back than it is to, to maintain enough power all the time to meet the demands of a use or burst. So he's saying dribble, pump dribble water to a high tower for water storage, and then that can gravity feed out. So that's good. I don't know if it applies to those people, but we'll see. Olga L. We'll do one more. Lauren, what are you saying? What are you saying? And I believe these ones are signed. I'm signing as many as I can.

Jonathan R. Jonathan R. Jaylene.

Here, let me get Mr. Henry. Is this better? Okay, for Jonathan R. and those others. You got one?

Yeah.

All right, this is good. From the sanitation chapter: My livestock books spend a great deal of time discussing various diseases. I won't. In my experience, they're footnote to your life if if you take care of things up front. Boy, have we not found that to be true. We're doing salads and methods, and people ask me, what's wrong with my chicken? I don't know, because I don't have that problem. And how do you fix this and that and the chicken? I don't know, because we haven't experienced that. Mainly because they're on deep bedding or moving regularly. And the dirty, unhappy animals are the most prone to sickness. Oh, it's so good. And then it's a whole chapter about how to prevent sickness in the first place. So just that chapter is worth way more than the cost of this book, which is $35 for just the book. Or here, you want to hold— here, you can help me with this part, Mr. Henry. Or you can get Abundance Plus, which is our streaming app platform, and we throw in the book if you get the annual If you get any annual, we just throw in the buck. You can have it. Is that right? That's right. We've almost gone through this pallet. We've gone through a whole pallet. We got one more and maybe two-thirds. We've gone through two pallets.

Yeah, they're right there. Yeah.

Oh yeah, she said we've gone through two. There they are. So we, we go until these pallets are gone or October 3rd comes up. Uh, this, the special is going on until then, so, or we run out of books, whichever one comes first. Kaden, you pull books out, I'll sign them. We're replacing the ones we're shipping out. Wow, that looks so good, Jonah, heating up leftovers. He also made sausage and eggs combo, or did you make that, Josiah? Jonah made it. Man, he did good. You're an all-around dude, man. Get it done on the farm, get it done on the domestics.

Yep.

Man, that's a guy right there.

He's got a really good brain. He thinks of all sorts of good ideas like this, right?

Oh, is this your tray?

This is his idea.

Nice.

I was like, this is such a good idea.

What's on the menu tonight? I know it's Taco Tuesday. You got the salsa?

Salsa's already made in the fridge. Um, I'm making black beans in the Instant Pot.

Yep. And, um, what are you working on right now?

The garlic for the black beans.

For the what?

Black beans.

I couldn't hear you. We got a noisy— we got a noisy guy here. I feel like he'd go to sleep if I went on a walk.

But I want to go.

Yep, so you gotta hurry up because he's gonna be grumpy if I set him down. And I only want to stand so much. I want to save myself for this walk. Like, I feel like I can actually go on a walk. Well, if I sit down, he'll probably cry. I just went and test, you know, stood him up. Desk is a stand-up desk. Look. I guess that was his moan before he fell out. Do you want to try to help me set him down? She got him off my back. Here we go again. It's a new trend we got here. Supper turned out nice. Pico de gallo, the fixings for— do y'all know about that? Those are good. This, yeah, the grain-free taco shells, no grain. Uh, lettuce. Rebecca made these amazing black beans, and then Mexican rice. And for yours truly, 6 pounds of hamburger. I think I might have overdid it. I think you got a whole nother meal here, guys. Yogurt's out. We have the yogurt in the fridge. And where's the cream? And a quart of cream. That's a good day.