Crap! Cows Standing in their Water | Easy Fix

Happy day! We've got to get Ike the breeding ram out from the sheep before he breeds the little young ladies. Austin, our editor, is trying to capture the essence of what it means to be raised in a barn. The different way that our children are being raised. We got to start thinking about how we're gonna prevent He-Man from stepping in the water, manuring it, and ruining it for everybody. And some very special guests Many of you will recognize them. I can't wait. This looks so bad. Excuse the mess. Anyway, uh, this is the kid's solution. We've got a punctured line here, and so they just said, oh, so it doesn't spray me everything, I'm just gonna put the lid down. Surprise project there. It's a must. But before we get to that, let's go see what Austin's up to with the boys, and let's get Ike separated from the flock. Chilly morning here in the mountains of Fletcher, North Carolina. I'm gonna enjoy it though because we don't have many more. Filming this May 5th, last possible frost date is May 12th. Didn't get any milk yesterday because the calf was in. Calf is newly born but is now starting— we keep them with her 24/7 until there's not enough milk for us in the morning, and that has happened. You want to shoe that calf off of that? She's getting our milk. Moving the non-milkers over. There's the culprit stepping in water, the big guy back there. So we've had to give him this bigger trough. He doesn't step in that, but the problem is we can't leave that here for the sheep to use. It's too— it's too tall for them. Do you understand? If we had a short one, auto water on it, so when the cows leave it's full, we can leave, set up the cow another water, and the sheep can have this water. And then both the cows and the sheep have drank from it, and theoretically one waterer for two species. It's just easier. And plus, I don't like filling up this 100-gallon, dumping it out each day. Yesterday she didn't have anything because the calf's keeping up with it now. She gonna have anything today? Yeah, something. It'll be very bad for the first few days we put that calf up. Uh, how about I'll try to help you remember and we'll come out together this evening? Well, it's gonna break the fence. Yeah, this is how it's gonna be. Oh, that's smart. So you got her tied up to the— is this your routine now? I guess tie her up to the, uh, tie them up. So I didn't have to deal with them trying to nurse. Getting anything? Yeah. Oh good, maybe it had been a while since the calf nursed. Don't worry, we're gonna give the calf back as soon as we're done. Take her off this evening and that milk builds up overnight, and then we'll have morning milk. And that's what you call calf sharing. In industry the calf never sees the mother. Sad. We like to calf share for a couple of reasons. One, it's better on the calf for them to nurse. Gives them more nutrients and gives them a boost in the start of their life. If, uh, we'll boot— let them nurse as long as 6 months old, sometimes 10 months old, if we're going to keep that cow for a milker. Secondly, it's easier on us because so Suppose we don't get all the milk out, which could cause mastitis if you don't get all the milk out. We don't have to worry about that because the calf will then come behind us and drink all she wants. That could allow for a day of rest once a week. We used to do that. We used to just not separate the calf and let the calf have her, and it could allow for even going away for a few days and not being so strapped down to it. The reason we keep at it and milk her every day and make sure we don't miss. We just want the demand to be there. The more you demand and ask from a cow, the more she'll produce. And the less you demand and ask for, she'll naturally slow down. And so we want to get the maximum amount of milk we can from them. What's this film going to be about, Austin? The fact that they were raised in a barn. They're not like, uh, many other kids. They weren't raised the way I was raised. Yeah, you got inspired because You're thinking about their life, how drastically different it is even from other homeschool kids, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, my picture of homeschool kids is not that— like, the typical stereotypical homeschool kid is not your boys. So, but they've obviously grown to be successful boys. Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out why that is. You've got a little one, don't you? Yeah, yeah, two little ones. Yeah. And if my— if They could grow up to be like your boys. I think, uh, I'll be all right. This morning she's got some spunk, huh? Yes. You probably get the milk cows over, right? Yeah, we'll get Ike and a wither over. How can you guys spot a wither? Bigger. How are you going to cut them out and not get everybody else over? Oh, oh, that's not gonna work. Wait, wait. Oh, that brace is off, Jonah. Okay, can you two fix those braces today? Doesn't help that those have been detached. Here's the problem. Look how one skid is way back here and one's forward. It's crooked. Just— you want to do it by hand? That's not going to go by hand. Okay. All right, yeah, it's straightening out nicely. There you go. Corner is off about 4 or 5 inches. It's hard because to brace it at the bottom wood braces would potentially trip up the cows and it wouldn't be as easy to get in there. So what's the plan? To just get Ike over? Uh, do you want to— what, if you need a wither, they're right there. He should have— yeah, it would probably help. A withered is a castrated male. I'd hate to get a female over. What are you trying to uncover or find out? With this film. Why these boys are so perfect. Wait now, wait a minute. Early on when I started watching your channel was, you know, I came for the farming content, but then like your family just seemed different in a good way. They almost seem more prepared for life than I ever did. Jonah's almost 18. I would say he seems like he's ready to go. He's a hard worker. He's already got business ideas. What are your business ideas? Grading Airbnb houses. So like, why did I have to go through 18 years of public school education to learn life. Yeah, right. Why did I have to do that? What did I have to do that? I would much rather put my kids through this lifestyle. But, and it obviously works. So, hey, I think the wither already got back. Doesn't seem to matter. Ike seems pretty happy without the wither. I think we might need to put more Withers over. That's his mom, and she's just not holding condition. She needs to be weaned. Let's try again tomorrow, okay? They've had enough excitement for today. This two-net system is amazing, and this is one reason we can separate Ike. He's still with the sheep but not, you know what I mean? It's minimum stress. I'm sure he'd rather be in contact with them, but we'd rather not breed him, breed These young ewes, they're getting harvested in the fall. I would like to get him some buddies that he could touch, so I'm thinking it may be separating all the withers. No, okay, maybe we put the mama lambs and him over here. He's bred them all. I think that's what we'll do. Let the mama lambs get over here with the cows. They get the primo pasture, they recover, they get weaned. Hey boys, mama lambs in here tomorrow. He theoretically should have bred them all by now, and if he hasn't, he can. Jonah had an idea for a— put a lid over this thing. And so I had my thoughts were then let's do a lid right here. They can stick their head in on either side, but I don't think they'll step in. Lid needs to be removable so that we can clean it. It needs to be level before I take them in. What if we built something. Then we have to leave room for this thing. We have to have a notch. Okay. One of my favorite things about building is you get this idea, you sketch something on paper, and then it becomes a reality. Probably by the end of this video, Lord willing, and the creek don't rise. Gonna come with me this morning, fix a water line and a trough cover. How did you weasel a cheesecake? Yeah, that's not farm food. Give him some strawberry, that's something farm fresh. Look how quickly they go bad though, these farm fresh strawberries. You gotta get with it. As if we weren't extra enough with 20— I think we've gotten 20 gallons so far. We're gonna get another 15 gallons today. 35 gallons our special guests are bringing in. What's your breakfast of choice? Yogurt. That's a farm fresh breakfast. Yogurt from our farm and strawberries from a neighbor's farm. Get in, fix the couch, and now let's go. I want you to tell me. Okay. Somebody said, why are you carrying him? He's old enough to walk. Well, because he wants to be carried and I want to carry him. I enjoy it. And all too soon they're going to be out there mowing. That's so fun. And there will be no carrying. I enjoy you so much, this little, little bitty person. I want to help with that. Yeah, you do? Okay, let's get you there. Mom, what's really cool is I used to have to mow, and I used to carry the kids on my lap for them to have that experience. Now, not only do I not have to mow, the boys can take the little one, or Dad, right I've been real excited to build this lid cover, and I actually think it would work. I actually think I could do it in this 2 hours I have, but first I've got to do this. Let's hope so we can move on to the trough. Why is that leaking? Stopped. But it won't. Once that fills up with water, it's gonna explode it. I got a nice saw for this, and then we've already lost it. I'm gonna try the saw on the Leatherman. I don't want to cut it. Those— my cutters are too dull, and I'm afraid it's bending it. Barely put some heat on it. Oh man, that went on nice. Did two things different. Sold it clean, didn't burn it, didn't, didn't overheat it. Get it, turn me on! A little drip, it's a lot better than it was. This is only for this field down here, which is probably only in half an acre now behind the greenhouse and whatnot. Should only drip for a little while and then we turn it off. Plus soon, hopefully, hopefully this season We're going to tap into the gravity-fed water, and it won't so matter much if it's dripping a little bit, as long as we're not dripping faster than we're filling the tank. Because this is run off the well, I don't want the well pump to run unnecessarily. But that's such a little drip. Gideon, let's build this trough cage. I'm not sure I can bear it. I mean, I want to get to building this thing, but this shop is terrible. Gideon, can you help me? Let's just clean up this shop really quick. We'll get y'all out of there. Picked everything up, now we're blowing out the shop. That's That's a lot of dust, bro. Hey, what you doing with this? I'm filling up for the chickens. Chickens? Yeah, chickens don't need that. And the goose. The chickens need that. Oh, okay. I realize I probably need to build the platform first, not the frame, because the frame is not going to be able to run solid from one end to the next because there's going to have to be an indention for the auto-waterer. I've got my template laid out. Now I've got a nice cutting platform off the ground. Across the trough like that gives you an option to put the waterer on either side. One thing to do, left, I want to put underneath it this 1x so that it kind of— it'll hug the I mean, we can't— it's gonna go from here to here and then from here to here. 8.5, 8.5. So let's make 8, 4, 8.5. You don't know what that is, what those are gonna do. You're gonna see in just a second. We're gonna get this done. These 2x will hopefully hug it a little bit and keep it on there. I didn't account for this lip right here. That's on there. Shoot, we might could screw that on there, or we could just cut more off and still be able to clean it. We just need to open that up. I need 5 inches from, from this lip. I think that's plenty of room for their heads. I don't think he'll step in there. He'd have to kind of get over here, and he'd have to kind of point them in there. He'd have to be really intentional about it if he If it does, we'll go longer. I like how much room is in there. We could probably clean it. That means we could probably just screw this on there. All right, this looks better, huh? Put it on up there. Yeah. All right, let's go try it in the field. They're gonna come, probably knock that board. I'm not the only one to have this problem. Maybe we have another build for Homestead Builds Volume 2. We'll see, time will tell if that works. Let's check on that later this afternoon. But next, a lunch with our very special guest. Hey man, Winnie! I sort of recognize you from somewhere. You do YouTube? I might be. These are our dealers. Jason from Show the Land. Yeah, build stuff, grow stuff, grow stuff. Is that how it goes? Grow Food Build Stuff for Pete. Oh, okay, okay. Y'all are near the farm up there. Jason from So the Land, a YouTube extraordinaire. You're also going to get my trailer, the old horse trailer. Yeah, looking forward to that trailer. Yeah, I've been looking for one. Yeah, so you're just gonna be ready for anything. I just want to be ready for these things. You watch, when it happens, when you get that, you'll have all many options. I know, because that's what happens. You get a call in the middle of the night or a text Hey, I got like a couple cows here. Thanks for prepping the Mexican. Did you know today is a Mexican holiday? Yeah, I know, it told me. Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo, buddy. Okay, the Mexican holiday. You know what it means? Don't speak that language. We're gonna have to— we're gonna have to look it up. Cinco de Mayo, bud. A little sample of jam you made. Let's try it. Spoon for each of you. Sugar in this? Wow. Oh yeah, good. What kind of sugar did you put in that, Beck? Maple syrup and honey. Oh yeah, honey. I taste the honey for sure. Put a cover over the water. Oh nice. Let's see if it worked later. About to sit down, long form convo with the Contrarises. Secrets to life exposé. Let's go. 2 hours later. Jason, you had a wise word in there. What was that? If you're doing it right, it's boring. That's right. So give yourself a break if the homesteading gets boring. Yeah, you're doing it right. Or if it gets boring sometimes on this channel, just— that just means it's going right. Yeah, keep going. The cows aren't out, the pigs aren't— yeah, you know, busting through things. The chickens are staying alive, right? You're doing a good job. All right, you're done. Done. Martini shot. I got it. Yep, martini shot. Okay, what'd you— what'd you figure out? Uh, well, I gotta put it all together. Let's go get a cabin update. Austin's been working hard on that film, A Day in the Life. Today interviewed the boys, interviewed Mom and I. I'm curious to see what he comes up with. Randolph putting in the south side window. Looking good, Randolph. Replaced all the old rotten logs. Johnny, your cabin's coming along nicely. What'd you do for Austin? This afternoon? I worked out for him, worked on the treehouse. Okay, stuff like that. All right, change your mind? No, you can. I mean, you haven't seen it yet. It's a good trailer. It can't be any bigger than that because that's— I think that's— I wasn't looking for a giant one. Okay. I think these smaller ones are harder to come by. Yeah, they are. Little two-pony things. Yeah, yeah. And usually they're for horses. This is not— and this is great for maneuvering around the farm. We've had pigs, we've had sheep, we've had cows. Curious to see how the guard board's doing. Yes, it's here! He hasn't flipped it. It's clean water. He hadn't stepped in it. And you know what that means? We filled that up when we moved the cows on. That will be the sheep's water. This will be the sheep's Netting. Oh, I saw Nacho got over. I mean, Ike, probably through this. Yeah. All right, tomorrow we'll have to get the Ike back over and all, and, and all of them, all the big mamas and more strawberry. Did you know that I can make jam from frozen strawberries? Did you know that I could? Oh no. Okay, that's true. So if for some reason we use too much jam, we need some more. Hopefully we'll have some frozen. That means you'll just— maybe you should freeze more then. I'm trying, because if we don't use the jam, you can't turn it into anything else, right? Let me be free.