Countdown to Joel Salatin + Rabbits

Joel Salatin's coming. Evidently we've done the hutches. Somebody marked that off. Although Randolph said he's coming back Monday. I think they are mostly done. Stands— I think the stands are done for the rabbits. We're getting rabbits. We have not caught this rat. We're gonna push back the chicks coming until maybe I'm feeling a little bit better, till we maybe we get a hold of this rat. Landscaping— how's that going, Jonah?

Okay, I guess. I haven't started yet though.

I guess so. But I guess you have Monday and Tuesday and even today if you wanted. The garden guy's coming in to help us with that. What you doing?

I'm getting myself a snack.

Okay, good. Over the weekend, my right hand continued to feel a lot better. Feel better?

Yes.

It went to my left hand, into my left fingers. That was a hard moment when it was still in my right ankle, which it still is. Which is— but it's getting better. And then right hand, left arm all at once. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event with Salatin. There's 5 people in the film crew coming. I don't think this is one of those things that could be rescheduled. Because of his schedule, film crew schedule, this is just something where we're gonna have to really hope for the best. 'Cause I'm not getting better fast. I'm getting better, but it's not fast. That said, I don't know how exciting or long this vlog is gonna be. You know, one thing is— it doesn't really help that much just to sit around. It really doesn't. It's maybe not as painful, but I don't know, after I get up it's worse. Like from sitting, like in the morning, that it— getting up from the bed, it's the worst. So it's not one of those things where really if I just laid around, I would just start feeling better, or I would do it. Mom pruned her tomatoes on Friday. They look so good. Guess what is working? The Everflow water. It's been working. Guys, there's constant flow of water right there, always cool and always clean. Jonah, I think we can call it on those peas. You want to pull those peas? Jonah, look at those squash! Are they melted together, those two? Grab those squash. And then there's one down in here too. Boy, prolific! Grab all those squashes, guys. You have to stay on squash every day or they balloon. They grow fast. Show me that, Jonah. See? Yeah, that's a hair big. That's perfect. The one in your right hand. Just that hair. The pigs— good. How's that one pig? She all right?

Yep.

Jonah, let's clean out the feed pan. Let's check on Randolph's job. Boom! Holy smokes! We use lumber from our land. This is, this is legit. Look at this, Gideon. Look at this, the feeders, the cages. Come on. Hey, wait, come on, come on. Hey guys, stop doing that. Come on. Just a demo of that. Let's see how that opens. Oh, that's cool, dude. These are so heavy duty. You put your feed in there.

Uh, where's the water?

You can have one rabbit per hutch. We'll have 3 rabbits, so we'll have an extra hutch. I had wanted to do this whole pretty thing, you know, frame it out, you know, put it on the porch or something. I doubt Rebecca was going to go for that, but do a thing where we had a chicken system underneath it. But hey, we're just, we're just getting by. This was something we've had planned for months. I'm kind of thinking in the mulch area of the pole barn. How heavy is that?

Probably this.

Yeah, yeah. It's 4 men going to be able to move that easy? No, no, no. Like, try to grab the tables. Oh, two men can move that easy. That is Lily's operation. She's been doing her chickens over a year consistently. She's been wanting rabbits consistent. Hey, Papa, that was one thing, you got to show us you can do the chickens, and she can. Rebecca's also excited about— because the rabbit manure you can put on the garden right away. You don't have to Yes, you know, to me, could move that. Oh wow, you and Azariah, you could move it? Yeah, it could go temporarily maybe where we have hay, but it could also go over there around the mulch. Here we're on the other side of the pole barn, probably right about here. I mean, we need to clean out this, this old sheep stanchion and some of the spent hay. Probably right here for now. I like this because their poop could fall to the concrete, be easy to scrape up. They'd get plenty of light out here and they'd have shelter. And we come out here anyway for the pigs. We just come out here for the rabbits at the same time. Jonah's looking at the things he wants to do. Yeah, like right here, Jonah, with a snow— well, you could put down more mulch after it's weeded. All that fuzzy stuff is asparagus, but in between seems to be a lot of wild tomatoes growing. So just weed around that. And like, here's some morning glory that should be pulled before it gets crazy. See it?

I'm not really gonna do the, um, pretty place. I'm just gonna go up to the creek and then along the side of it.

Oh, okay. What about the bank along the creek? It's a pretty place.

Yeah, it's getting done.

Yeah, might want to do that. Soon if you guys want to enjoy swimming in it. Yeah, let the grass get washed away. He's wanting to mulch the elderberries. I say kind of put that lower on your priority list. They seem to be doing just fine. Let's go check the turkeys and the geese.

They were perched up on their turkey shawl, um, last night.

Nice. Oh wow, and look how many— look how well they've mowed. I think these guys need to get moved tomorrow.

Yeah, they will.

How you guys like your turkey shawl set up? We got you out of the A-frame. Everybody's happy. Perching on the turkey. Well, the geese, what do they do? Do they lay underneath? Buddy, buddy! Hey, why is he bleating?

I don't know.

Is he's got water? They got water over there? It looks a little crooked, the bucket. Okay, over here at the fat chicks, everybody doing good, getting nice and fat. Jonah has moved them to fresh grass today. Old grass, old pasture, new grass, new pasture. How is it?

I mean, it looks like they have enough.

Yeah, he probably just hears the other ones going. Give you a perspective, there's Buddy way down here in this field. I'm gonna pan slowly. Pole barn, our house, Haroon, and then The sheep are right there. You can't see them, but from behind that tree. And the, the ewes are there, the mamas, and the little baby lambs are over there. They're not bleating right now, but they have been. They are getting a lot better because we weaned them. So it's been, what, 4 days now? 5? What's going on in here? Hey, we got Prince Henry getting rolled around. Prince Henry, you getting rolled around? Guys, I'm not sleeping well. Well, I got 45 minutes of deep sleep last night. I'm thinking because it's because of the pain. Uh, Paul Saladino though, a guy I follow for the animal-based diet, was saying some of you carnivores, you need to add— you need you can do some simple carbohydrates if you're having problems sleeping. Some of the things I'm already eating, like squash and cucumbers, berries— which, did you know banana is a berry? Yes, it's a berry. But he also said white rice. Yes, about some white rice just loaded with butter. I think that maybe that would help me sleep because of this wind. Beyond my goal weight, like I'm losing weight, going further than I had imagined. So I think we want to stabilize that. A lot of you guys are saying, oh, it's gout. It's not gout. We actually, uh, are under the care of two different doctors. Wish it was gout because we could heal that easily. It's a rare 1 to 5% chance You get Campylobacter, you get arthritis. Some people get temporary paralysis. So thank you. Thankfully it didn't go that far. We've expanded our bed on Cubby. It's, it's got one of those cool collapse the cab, make a short bed, or open it up in the case of hauling 4 hay bales. Today we've slowed down our cows. They're in the static paddock. For one more day. Tomorrow we'll get them moving again. The grass is getting going, getting caught up. Get in, you get buckled in, boys. You guys will have to meet me over there, there's not enough seats. Teamwork on shifting gears. Two hands. We have to do it this way because I can't lift bales. That worked nice, guys. I can't lift bales and they can't either, but we're not a family who says can't, are we? We can. We figure out a way. Yeah, you can't lift the bales. Say, how can I? Well, get that cubby up to the stack of hay and roll the hay out. Hey, number 2! Nice, you got them! I'm super impressed with you guys thinking like that. Good job. We got her in the stanchion. Thank you, Jonah, that was great work. He grabbed the alfalfa, just got through her through, put the sheep back. And look who's here, Arun, on a Sunday. He came out and offered to help. I said, no man, you can rest, we got it. But he's still here, he's a good friend. There we go, two kids, one on each side. Oh my goodness, your udder is so huge. That's gosh, there's milk just Well, I guess it could be called— it's just flowing right out of that one. Okay, so when's she due? She's due on the 18th, which is Sunday. Oh my, look at that milk just flowing out. I know, poor thing. Well, my hands ache looking at— she's gonna have 2 gallons a day. Oh yeah, I'm excited because we haven't had cream. One cow is not enough for us. We, we just drink the milk and there's no, there's no nothing left for cream. Get some yogurt. They've been in this sacrifice pasture, what, almost not a, not quite a week. Let's look. We've got our pasture here. I think this is ice cream grass. I think Joel would probably like to see it a little taller, but we do have to get them moving and we'll see what he says. We might slow them down again a little later on. We might just make smaller paddocks, supplement a little bit with hay. This is going to be incredible milk, Rebecca. This is going to be a crazy place for her to have her calf. She'll be giving so much milk. What's crazy was Joel was here, what, 11 months ago, and she had a calf the day he came. We named her Polly. There's Polly over there somewhere. This one will be Joel.

If it's a boy, even if it's a girl, it should be funny.

We named her Polly after Joel's His Polly Face Farm. Jolene. Jolene if it's a heifer. Joel if it's a bull. It's one of those things where I need to get me as well as possible, stay on my feet even if it hurts. We got to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. A couple supplements this morning. It is advised to take it with food, so I'm taking a little bit of a broth. Turmeric. Rebecca is making me a broth-based white rice. I'm kind of looking forward to— no, I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't had rice in, I want to say, a year. Rebecca's got me on a castor oil pack, pull out inflammation. Thank you, Becca, for pulling out all the stops. Rebecca, that was actually very relaxing. Good. Hour and a half castor oil session. Felt so good. Uh, 40-minute sauna. Watch this, Becky. I feel so much different than yesterday. Yesterday, just everything hurt. And now I feel like it's just in a few spots. Just gotta get that toe better. We're gonna have a good night tonight. I took charcoal before I got into the sauna. Yeah. So I'm doing apple cider vinegar and charcoal. Now I just gotta add the swine NutriBalancer. Oh, and the kale. And then we'll be on the pig protocol. And the vitamin C. I'm missing quite a few things, aren't I? I don't think I'll go that far. I'll stick with your remedy.