Chickens Destroy This Compost Pile + That’s a Great Thing

Oh my gosh, that's the bad weather advisory.

A few thunderstorms will continue to develop and move across Henderson County this morning. On top of already saturated conditions, several French Broad tributaries were rising and will likely come out of their banks. Expect the typical flooding of low-lying areas along Mud and Back Fork Creeks and around greater Hendersonville. Hazard: flash flooding caused by thunderstorms. Source: radar indicated. Impact: flooding of small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets, and underpasses, as well as other drainage.

My project this morning is to clip wings. Did you bring those scissors down? Where were they? I left them on the counter. Are you serious? You didn't bring those scissors down? Okay, I put them right here. Did I put them back? Why did I put them back? Too efficient. Put them back. Now how do I take you guys and not get wet at the same time? Can somebody come with me and film this? Let's do 2 feed pans today. I think there's some in the, uh, brooder because it's so wet and nasty. Why didn't I do this yesterday when it wasn't raining? I need you to Be under here with me to hold the camera and the— the— can you hold the camera and the umbrella? Now I can't wait to do this rooster. I see him jump out every day.

How do you do?

Josiah, we take the camera and put it under the shed, please.

It's the pig scrap bucket upstairs.

It's still upstairs. I saw it. Get in. You can go with me on this one. We'll be under the port. Okay, you have to poop. All right, you gonna meet me there? Yeah, please. I guess it happens to the best of us. Can I get through with this umbrella? No. This is a mess. So glad we got our seeds down just in time for this rain. Got our hay down. Hay to keep the ground covered, to keep the seeds from washing away. Perfect timing. They've destroyed this. All right, so someone asked, hey, why don't you use straw out there? Well, y'all don't know, but straw is very toxic. It's from the wheat industry, so unless you get organic been herbicided, pesticided.

I don't want that on my pastures, so I'm happy to use—

I'm happy to use my unsprayed hay. And yeah, there's going to be some weed seeds in it, some grass seeds. That's good. Somebody said, what if there's alfalfa seeds in it? Yes, I'll take it. That's the handy thing about this shed. This compost pile's moisture level is staying consistent. It's not a big old muddy mess in here even though it's pouring rain out there. Are you serious? Did I not just clip wings? Oh, how? All right, where's his leash?

Hey, grab that camera so that Moose doesn't ruin it.

Thank you for recording that, Josiah. Hey, will you go push in the grains? You push while I pull. Good, good. There you go.

Good job.

Wow, how many kids does it take to milk a cow?

One.

But three is helpful. Oh my gosh, look at, uh, who is that? That's Waddle. He's the only one— he's the only one likes this rain. No, she— why do I keep saying he? That's a she. All right, let me get back in there. We're gonna keep it moving today. I've got a chiropractor appointment this afternoon. My back's been bothering me. First it was muscle, like soreness. Now it's like— smells like a bone. So anyway, that really messes things up because we got to get done with chores, got to get edit before we go. The chores don't stop on the rainy day, but neither does the milk flow, neither do the eggs. Somebody's really proud of their achievement in there. Rebecca, how's it going in here? Yeah, I've had this muscle soreness in my back for quite a bit of time, I think. But, uh, I think that all that hard raking and shoveling in that pasture might have set off— got me out of alignment. Hence like the more, I don't know, deeper, bonier pain. Hey! Oh, you ready for the plunge? Oh, he's ready for the plunge. It's gonna be nice and beat this morning. I know, it's gonna be rushing. I hope we can do it. I hope that it doesn't knock us over. Hope there's no thunder. 8:15 was the last hearing. Yeah, but I figured 30 minutes.

Hey, good morning.

Sure, just take your shoes off. Oh, look who's here! They gotta be milked even in the rain, don't they, Branna?

Yep, it's kind of nice in the rain because we're not wet.

Okay, you got her washed and ready?

Yeah.

Okay, let's do this. Hey, can I come in there and get some hay? Yeah, I'll come throw some off. Okay, don't knock my camera off.

Okay, Papa, I'll do that.

Hold it steady right there. Leave it there on the hay. Okay, ready? Okay, is everybody out of the way down there?

Yes. Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Yeah! Whoa! Daddy got a little place right here. Can you get it? Where? Right there!

Whoa! Okay, I got an idea for a tunnel. Yeah, you can still get in. Hang on. Oh, but we got to figure out how to get you out. Oh, I know how to get you out. All right, there you go. Do the tunnel. All right, let's go take this hay.

Bobby, you're okay. How many do you think the strongest man in the world could lift?

It would have been fun to cold plunge now, given the creek's so deep, but with that thunder, I don't think we should do it. All right, Rebecca, Brianna, yes, thundering. Oh no. Yep, just not 10 minutes ago.

Okay, yeah, we probably shouldn't.

No, no, I don't really want to. It's not worth the risk. All right, yeah. You know what? Let's get on this. 9 o'clock. I can't remember the last time I started editing at 9 o'clock. But I should be able to get done by 1:30. That was a beast of a vlog. Do you know there's like almost 3 hours raw footage? Normally I only have 1 to 2 hours raw footage. Cutting that down to 20-ish minutes. Oh, look at this. Anna has gone over the top. Oh my word. Bagels. Are these gaps? I know they're gluten-free. Look at that, Lily. Yeah, you like it? What about you, Mr. Brown? I like your hairdo. Who combed his hair? That's nice of you. My fingers. It looks good, my man. Let's try it. Let's try egg biscuit— I mean, egg bagel. She said there's more. Tastes so good.

There's not that many.

Okay, breakfast was good. Gotta go to the office now, guys. Let me know how it goes, huh? Leaving it to y'all. Call me if you need anything. Okay, we'll call you. Dude showed up. You gonna come edit with me?

Yeah.

Okay, that's good. Because I'm almost done with the first angle, and, uh, it's only 12:20. I might be able to pull this off in an hour and 10. Oh, the mics— the headphones are still on.

Okay, ready?

Yeah, you help me at it. Kind of trains her. Art says they're gonna get it out of pure boredom. They've not got nothing to do but and find their minerals. Let's try our new hook. That's why I put— let's try our new hook. You done? Already?

Yeah.

Okay, let's try our new— yeehaw! Got done with 15 minutes to spare. Got 15 minutes. I'm done. That's not enough time for you to watch it. I was just gonna say, can I watch it? Does it have to be beautiful? What? Does it have to go up early? No. Okay. I'm gonna— then, um, can I finish answering this question? Maybe I could take this few minutes to go check on the minerals to see if the sheep have eaten them. Yeah, that'd be great. Because we— the last time we left them yesterday, they weren't getting it themselves. No, they needed my help. Oh, can everybody say BMX Bandits? We're getting better. Good to see you guys out. Look at them on the coop. Oh, look how high! Oh my gosh. Okay, we got 3 things to test here. Did the minerals stay dry? Did the sheep get them? And how's the waterer? Hey, you know what? That was weird talking backwards. I think if I remember watching the shows, the guy, the host, he's like doing a weird walking towards the camera. Let's try that.

Okay.

So we got 3 things to test here. Did the minerals stay dry? Did the sheep get them? And how's the water doing? Oh yeah, that was a little better, wasn't it? Okay. That was a lot of action right there though. They've made it muddy right there. That means they've hung out there a lot. Look at this, a lot of action. That means they've tried a lot. That means they've spent a lot of time there trying, or spent a lot of time there eating. Water's doing good. Our hooks held up. All right, but boy, doesn't take much to muddy it up. Okay. It's kept hair out of there. Oh, it's kept it dry. Now we're looking for a common one, which would be— that kelp is common, it's not eaten. A— ah, I can't tell. I don't know, I'm gonna have to have Rebecca look. I wish I could say it was gone. Here. Don't be lazy. Okay, here, come on guys, you can do it. See, there's condensation on the bottom of this roof. Why? That's probably why this was getting wet. Okay, now see if you guys can do it yourself. Come on, come on, you're so close, you're so close.

I wonder if—

I wonder if we didn't make the flap far enough out. Here, look, here, I'm gonna make them push it up a little bit. There you go. Okay, made her push it up to it. See, watch, watch now. Watch now. She did it! She did it!

You did it, honey!

Now you'll teach all the rest, won't you? Huh? Will you learn? Okay, can you tell I'm excited? I'm not sure they were getting in there, but I just kind of let her smell at it, and then I kind of lifted it forward and let her lift the rest of the way, and I think It's game change from here on. Hey, how full did you fool them? Fill them? Very full. Oh, very full? Yeah. Well, then they're eating them. Yes. All right, we're there, Rebecca. Feel okay right now? Let's see if we can feel better.

Okay.

Okay, this part of the video is where I meant to give an update on actually what happened at the chiropractor. I walked out of there actually feeling a little bit better. Yeah, I never talked to you about that. No, you didn't. We haven't had time. Yeah, um, so far movement is the only thing made it feel a little bit better, but, uh, it's actually a little bit better after the chiropractor. I came home and checked on the chores. All right, we are back. Jonah and Grace out doing the chores I'm gonna go check over things. Jonah is a very hard worker, but it's his choice. Here on the farm, this is an actual business, creating content surrounding this farm. So if the children work, they get paid. They have their household chores, they don't get paid for that. They live here, but people wonder how we get our kids— hey, how do we get you motivated to work so hard? What makes you work so hard on the farm? Dollar bill. Is that the universal sign for dollar bills? You want to sing the dollar bill song?

Dollar, dollar bills.

Dollar, dollar, dollar bills.

Look, it came.

Whoa! Yeah, I was going to show them that. I saw. We got a portable, uh, What do you call that? Hydraulic air pump. Portable air pump. What else we got?

It does so much stuff.

That's for the, uh, Luchador mobile wrestling ring. Can you jump start a tractor with it? Oh yeah, they got a jump start on it. That thing will be handy.

Don't jump start a truck.

Well, get it out and get it charged, please. Get it charging. And I wonder what this is.

Oh, probably V6 or something like that. Uh, well, that's a big truck.

Bike gloves. Who's that?

Mine.

There's your bike gloves. Okay, what do y'all lack?

Nothing.

You did everything? Nothing. Pigs and everything?

Yes.

Hey, looky here, no chickens out over here eating my grass seed. Kind of a new afternoon chore for us. Oh, this is brutal. Holy chicken squat! So sorry, guys. That's disgusting. Uh, this is kind of a disgusting job. I'm sort of leaning towards just putting some perches in this thing, making sure our fence is always on. I gotta convince them before that and letting this be their coop and let the poop fall directly on the compost. Doesn't that plug in to get charged?

It's right here. You just got to get an extension cord.

Wait, that doesn't have a cord that comes out? I bet it extends. Oh wow, okay. All right, let's get an extension cord and hook it up then. Oh yes sir, thank you. Don't lose any of the parts. It might not need charging. Looks like it's full, so just turn it off. It's ready to go.

It is battery powered.

Full. Just go check on one more thing— the ewes and the cows. All right, fence is on. That's good. They've got hay. That's good. They've got water. That's good. The cows have got hay. They're fat and happy. Everybody fat and happy. Good job, Jonah. Proud of you, buddy. All right, on days like today, you just do bare minimum and get back inside. Projects wait for a more beautiful day. After chores, we ate supper. And look, I gotta show you guys this. People wonder why we don't ever show our egg harvest. I don't know, it's at the end of the day. Jonah collects the eggs at dark when he puts up the chicken But isn't that beautiful? It is, it's beautiful. I mucho huevos. Looks so nice. Okay, and there's one more thing. Oh, I should print this out and show them. What I really wanted to show them is what Mother Earth News sent me. Follow me over here. Okay, I'll show you guys on the computer. Looky here. This is a flyer I put out on the social medias. You guys are getting it now. You can meet me at the Mother Earth News Fair. You can incidentally meet Rebecca all across the country, like 4 of them starting next weekend in Texas. Who's going? Who's going? Show of hands. Anyway, I got you 10% off. Info on that down in the description. Come see us. If you can't make the Texas one, consider the Nashville one in May, Polyface in July. Which is in Virginia, and then Seven Springs Farm in Pennsylvania in September. I got it memorized. All right, link for that down in the description. 10% off. Come, come, let's hang out, let's hang out, hear my talks, hear my talks. If I Can Homestead, So Can You. We're Actually Unlikely Homesteaders. And the Top 10 Things I Learned from the Great American Farm Tour. Oh, also, if you get that and forward me your receipt, I'll give you the Great American Farm Tour digital version so you can download it, take it with you, whatever, watch it on the computer. Grab the family, movie night this Friday. Just forward me a receipt and I'll give that to you for free. That's like a $20 value, y'all. All right.