Crazy Mom

Oh boy. Y'all ever had fried chicken sandwiches? I think so. Have you?

No.

No? Well, you're in for a treat. Fried chicken sandwiches tonight. There's where the cows are supposed to be. There's where they are. At least one or two of them. I love introducing the kids to something that we love. And they have not yet had— you guys have food? You gotta eat your food before it gets soaked. They're clamoring for this. Chicken runs are starting to get nasty. We need to change their, uh, carbonaceous diaper, as Joel would call it. And that means they need some fresh wood chips, and that means the rental company needs to get that wood chipper fixed. They're like a week behind, supposed to get.

Do you realize the sheep are there? Honey's in the trailer. The two cows are just—

yeah, there are two things going on with the animals getting out this morning. One, we are weaning Honey and her calf. Has it been a week? And she's still crazy. That's Vanilla. They're all confused. Honey must be up there by her calf. Do you turn the fence off? Oh, that's what happened. Okay, it's off. Yeah, helps if we turn the fence off. I'm not saying it wasn't me. I mean, it could have been me. Lily, you, you came out here and rode your horses later, didn't you? Is this where they breached it? Okay, we have to turn on the fence. They don't have the internet. They know exactly when this goes off and they get out. It's quite the distraction right here. It's coming along, huh? Now we just need A little bit of a break in the weather. Can you guys fetch rocks on a day like today for the retaining wall?

It is so wet.

Yeah, we need it to be a little dry. We need the retaining wall so that we can start moving this type of material back up. We need the wood chipper so we can grind all that brush so that then we can get the cows to hay bomb through here. What do you think on this sandy stuff? Are we going to scrape it off and take some of the topsoil Or are we gonna— you know what, I know the answer. Or are we gonna put a layer over on top of it? I know the answer. I know the permaculture answer.

Layer on top.

Yeah, you always build on top. Even if it's concrete, you could build soil on top of that. We have a low spot right here too, Jonah. Right here we got a low spot, so we got to try to, to grade a slight slope to the creek. You could maybe stack rocks. That jackhammer that right now, okay, we could just slowly take off Yeah, that might work. We're trying to spend zero money on this, use what we have, because we have zero money in the budget for this. Big Daddy did get $3,500 for a bridge from FEMA, so I think we may be able to do a— that, that restricts us to a culvert bridge. Pigs need wood chips too. That could be wire. Pigs keep running out of water, dripping pretty good. Yeah, I might have to look at this leak. We have a leak in the pig. That's going to get tweaked pretty easy, but I stopped it for now. The hay is something. I mean, it won't last long. It'll too quick absorb that mud and just be part of the mess. Wood chips are so much better. It's a good mama. I knew exactly where these guys would be with the matriarch. Up here checking on her baby. It could seem to care less. Uh, put that on the list too. Nothing's coming out of the overflow water. Something in this recent rain has clogged it up. We might have a hard time getting her out of here, huh? You're gonna need a bigger stick. Now what do you attach to? Come on. All right, come on. All right, I'll have to help you with honey and then we'll come back for the others. Wrong way. Just worry about Honey. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Don't come this way, you're gonna have to keep going that way. Okay, Jonah, we're not worrying about them, just Honey. We'll get He-Man. Might be worth checking the fence at night. There they go. Those two are crossed. Is she gonna cut to our left, Jonah? She's crossing. Your shoes have holes in them too? Mine have holes in them. There we go. Let's move everybody over but the two cows, and then we'll milk them in the paddock. We milk them outside the paddock sometimes, but— well, most of the time, but I don't think we'll do that today. Beautiful one's about to leave. We're gonna get a, uh, take a break right here real quick, get a, uh, freeze dryer update. We did bread, bread we don't want, the first round, just to— they say to do that to off-gas it.

Break it.

So could you freeze dry bread? Um, so they say it's really crunchy.

Yeah, so they say that you cannot, um, reconstitute it or it's soggy.

Yeah. What are we gonna do next?

I'm gonna do another load of bread.

Defrost time. I thought it tells us exactly what to do on the screen. An hour defrost.

So now we'll defrost it and then when I get hot—

Says it's gonna take 2 hours.

When I get hot.

Drain valve's open. There's ice on this inside on the sides. See you later, alligator.

It's time to eat.

Breakfast is ready.

You wanna go with me?

Mama, did you go buy toys for me?

I did, I bought some toys for you.

I'm gonna go pick 'em up. All right, that's good. Now back up to it. Okay, that's enough. All right, all right, back up.

That's why we got a milk carton and a fence, I thought.

Uh, I'd wanted to milk in their old paddock, but Jonah picked up the old paddock. She's fine. I was busy with Mom. I think now then, if we milk them here, they're eating alfalfa, she gets full. Well, she milked nice. Now she's got a full belly. Everything's less stressful when your belly's full.

Can I get on her?

Yeah, that'll get her moving. It's never too late to do a jack-o'-lantern on the homestead. Where are we on this? Whoa, you cleaned this up good. Great. This one's still okay, Gideon.

Yeah, but I have to carve it out.

So what's wrong with this guy?

It's cut up.

Jonah asked yesterday if he could shoot a pumpkin, and the pumpkin was turned sideways. It was turned like this, and I didn't think about it, but that was Gideon's pumpkin, and we didn't even get a chance to light it with him. So I told him I'd make another one with him, even during morning project hours. Oh, I like how he's winking. Did you do that on purpose?

Yeah.

Okay, now go put that in your room. Put that on the— on the table in the— in the dining room. We'll light it tonight.

Um, thing out here?

Yeah, yeah, but we won't see it as much as if we put it on our kitchen table.

But I can't just put it out here, we'll see everyone.

Sure, but just Well, no, don't you understand? We light a candle in it and glows.

Yeah, inside.

Yeah, we won't see that in the morning because, you know what I mean? I wonder if these chickens are okay. They keep acting very hungry. This is my favorite part of doing a jack-o'-lantern. We got a lot to do and a little bit of time this morning, as always. So we ask ourselves, what's the most important? Shoes are pretty important. Uh, one thing we got to do is there's a water leak in, in one of these water hoses going to cows. That can be a priority. There's no water going to the youth group over there. That's going to need to be a priority. These might have to be dried out now. These are some of the jobs you got to do sometimes on the homestead, kids. See, here to dry out. I see you found some other shoes. Good. Hey, let's go. Got all my water hoses down here together. We got a leak. You boys come help. No, don't bring this up. Get in, grab one of those hoses and bring it right here. I missed from this burnt hose from back when we were doing baths. All it needs is a hose barb and a couple of hose clamps to fix that, but I just don't have those right now. And I have a lot of hoses, so here we go. We can easily cut that burnt part off and patch it. I need to remember and order that. There's an old patch job, works great. I wish to get off this grass sooner than later, they're plugging it up.

Good job.

Oh, there's some wood chips.

Yeah, was that—

was that drill out here?

Yeah, I found it.

Oh, it's a lucky— we still work. Good news and bad news. Good news, I'm less creaky. That's a sign of lowering inflammation. The knees don't hurt as badly. As y'all know, I've been working to address my inflammation. Been OMADing, 1 meal a day. Did not do it over the weekend. Weight is also an indication of inflammation, and I just I plateaued over the weekend, so I think if I really need to address this by the new year, I'm gonna have to be strict even on the weekends.

Let's go, bud.

I don't feel like there's water in this part of the line. My guess is there's no water going into the catchment anymore. Let me just check this real quick. Yeah, there's nothing here. Let's go to the top. I don't hear anything going through the tank. It doesn't fill the tank when we're on Everflow, it just flows right through. A few weeks ago, cleared this out. This is just so nice, I can just walk right up there now. Boy, we've had a blowout. Okay, all the water is going to the right. That's kind of the way it wants to go ever now since the hurricane. It's missing the water collection. I put some rocks down, got a little diversion there. I have to set up something longer term eventually because it's gonna blow out in another rain, or move my weir over here. Let's see if it's going down through this pipe to my tank. That's a good sound. In the summer you can close off the lines down below and this tank fills up and you have a reserve. In the winter though, the water keeps— that'll freeze. So in the winter you got to keep it moving. That's pretty good. Maybe by the Time I'm down there. I think the water will beat me down there. It's all good. Hey, who needs to buy you toys when you've got a drill, huh? Mama does. Mama found a killer deal on like 250 cars or something on Facebook, on Facebook Marketplace. Our new best friend. There's got to be— there's fire trucks, there's dune buggies. Yeah, hopefully we won't come to y'all at once, so We don't lose all the excitement all at once. Hopefully this problem is solved. Let's go see. We got one more problem. Grinding stone is here for the chainsaws. We need to be ready when that wood chipper is ready, which I need to call them because hopefully that's happening this week. There's a drizzle. I think it's coming.

I think it's always been a drizzle.

No, it was totally dry this morning. I think it's going to take a minute. I've only got two. So I better not bust 2 more. Okay, timeout on that. Mom's home. You guys are acting like Jonah when we got the machines. Wow.

Wow.

Y'all pick 10 each for right now.

10 each.

And the rest need to be saved so we have more excitement later. This is boys dying and going to heaven. It looks like you have your 10 picked out. Take the toys downstairs. I stored them up there. And then when we need a fresh toy, there we go. They don't need them all at once. They'll wear out all at once. You know what I'm saying? They need to occupy those kids. Let's hope this is the right size. I think it is. Looks good. Okay, I freshened up on the instructional. I figured out I was doing some things wrong. That's an easy and common mistake. About put that chain on backwards. You got to envision it. You got a 50/50 chance if you're not paying attention. Imagine it going like that and make sure you put it with your sharp blades going that way. Ask me how I know. I put on a chainsaw backwards. Wondered why it wasn't cutting. We're ready when that wood chipper is. I'm pretty sure we've done all our sawing, but I'm also pretty sure we haven't. As far as I know, we have, but I'm sure there's going to be surprises, and I'm sure, sure we'll need to be able to assist in some way at some point with a chainsaw. These sweet potato fries in our future, via the smiley one, the beautiful one, will be making some fried chicken sandwiches. She's telling me to smell these buns. I haven't eaten all day. This is going to be delicious. We got some chickens to part real quick. Hopefully I set out enough. Maybe having some thigh— some thigh sandwiches. I'm gonna debone this chicken. I'm afraid I'm not gonna have enough, so just a looked up a video on how I'm gonna get the bone out of the chicken thigh. I'm getting the chicken thigh. I'll have a chicken thigh sandwich. I don't mind. I'd rather have the higher fat ratio. Okay, so the internet said— this is how Mrs. Boob Tube said to do it. Slit right along that bone. Yeah, now I can get under it. There we go. Killer buns on the way. How'd my chicken turn out, Dar?

Oh, it's turning out great.

I got it before How come it got so juicy again?

I just—

I even dried it. Do you think you can fix Lily's cart? Yeah, by tomorrow. Miss Leslie's gonna come and help her hook it up. How can you do that? We'll work on it tonight. What do you do? Because I don't know what to do.

I'll just go get the axles off the pretty shocks.

I wish it would work, but they're not going to fit through that hole.

I know, I'll just make better holes. It'll look way better.

Holy smokes.

Yeah, so good.

I'm gonna need to hurry. I need to get back to that. That is by far the best thing about one meal a day, is the one meal a day. So good when you go to eat. Hear Jonah grinding away. Get over here and check this overflow water before it gets dark. I cannot get across without getting my feet wet. Let's get a machine. Let's see what Jonah's doing on this cart. That's not for metal.

I promise these are all for metal.

Are they?

Yeah, I'm gonna cut this away and I'm gonna weld this bolt.

Yeah, like this.

So go like that, then at the end, and this is gonna go right here. Okay, this will go through.

What did you— what did you use for a spacer?

That's not a spacer, that's where it's just gonna be held in. That's just gonna hold it. Okay, at the other end. Oh, I mean, I could use these for spacers if I need to.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's just gonna hold it.

All right, did not want to be late for this. It's important to me that this be running, working, that you guys see this. Oh, look what we have here! It's running a good amount, should be good to go. It's not going to be cold again until Friday. We got our wood boiler fixed. The electrician's got it hooked up properly. That's Tomorrow's project, getting that going, especially not while it's not crazy cold, because we want to make sure the thermostat is telling it to chill. And take a break to come eat. It's chicken fried sandwiches, dude. Oh wow, it's all from the farm except for the bun and the breading for the fried chicken. Oh my gosh, Rebecca, see your first bite of chicken sandwich.

Um, I took a bite.

Well, how was it?

Take another bite.

Let's see your second bite then. So good? You got a jack-o'-lantern. You like your burger? Your chicken sandwich? Yeah, you just ate the bun. What is it like?

It is so good.

Right?

Like, I haven't had a fried chicken sandwich in a very long time.

I know, right? What do you think, Henry?

It's good.

Wherever you are. Jonah, let's see it. I missed everybody's first bite. Did you just say it's okay? It's good. Makes you appreciate this when you make everything from scratch, 'cause this was not easy. Close us out. Chef. Happy day! Happy day!