Dear Failing Farmer,

There you are. Where you been? I don't know, but look what I got on. A nice North Carolina belt. Did you turn on the water for the animals? Yeah, I need it for the guineas. Okay, this is your guinea setup. Okay. Oh, that's, uh, sort of sad. I gotta— I still have to clean up from Violet. I've been wanting to make a special movie about why it's hard to lose an animal. Um, kind of a surprising reason that doesn't just come to the top of your head when you think about the reasons why it might be hard to lose an animal, whether it be a cow or sheep or anything else that you've put a lot of time into. Let's pick this up tomorrow and I'll do that special video. You're gonna wash out all the pans? Okay. You know what would happen? What? Why not? I won't give the pigs food yet. I'm gonna let out the chickens. Let's do— go ahead and let them out. Hey, I'm not no food. Hey, I'm still alive, don't eat me. You ever have one of those days where you just can't quite get going? That was one of those days. But once you finally get going, I think As Shea Butler said, emotion follows motion. Hey, they're gonna— you better hurry up or they're gonna eat me. They nibbled on me this morning. Hand me the pig's pan. Pig's pan before they eat somebody. Oh, they might eat somebody. Me or the chickens. One. Golly, take the pressure off finally. You know, I'm gonna put a hair grain on this and then I'm gonna bury it. I'm gonna pile it up and see if that doesn't encourage them to scratch it even more. It's a nice sight. That cow trough is leaking there at the corner. That just means what you need to do is set your— well, the auto waterer was up for one. But it just needs to be set over more on the downslope, and then it shuts off quicker. If I were to put it up there on top, there would be not as much water pushing up against this to turn it off. That's the way this works. There's a red float valve. See it? Okay, see that? Yep. So when that's down, water comes in, but when that floats up because water's in, it actually turns it off. It's pretty clever. So sometimes It's not sitting straight. You got to make sure it's on the downslope. Good morning! You guys like your new shade? Look at that, have already eaten that. The ICs need moved this morning. We mowed behind the cows over there. Now we can move the ICs over there. I broke my kickstand somewhere along the line, but it still works, just not attached. And don't you know, that'll be some of the most beautiful spots on pasture. They're worth it just for that, guys. Stirring their poop is only one benefit, and actually they're not able to do that much since I'm having to— I'm trying to train them more to this coop since free-ranging they just ended up going to their favorite spots and weren't really going behind the cows after their poop. Another benefit though is this has been mowed and there's grass clippings on top. Well, they help shred that and help break that down. That will now break down quicker. They're also aerating the earth with their scratching and of course their manure and fertilizing it. And we're decorating our landscape with animals. Here we have one not dead but probably gonna die. In that case, you know, many of you might not see that a lot of that side of the thing, but sometimes you get a, you get a sickly one and we tend to just leave them. Sometimes, if not most of the time, they end up making a recovery and coming back. Other times we'll come out here and find a dead chicken that just got transferred from chicken to pork, so there's really no waste on the farm. Fence is falling over a little bit. We're gonna have only one more move. We got two more days in here and then we need to move them. It's too much. Get any further without stepping on anybody. It's got fight left, buddy. You know, be tempted to put that chicken out of its misery, but It's still eating. Sometimes it's fermented feed can revive them. You know, it's hard to show that kind of stuff. There are 70-something chickens here and one's doing bad. The nature of a daily-ish vlog means at some point you're gonna have to show the bad and the ugly too. Like the one chicken there, I could have easily ignored that chicken and y'all could have never known about that chicken. Now that we got the Moxie Pad over there, let's spread this side. Here's why I think it's important, because almost every day I get an email or comment thanking me for showing that because they're having something similar happen and it doesn't make them feel like they're just making this huge mistake. You're not making a big huge mistake when you're working with live things, whether it's plants or animals, something's going to die. And when you work with more and more, like, what are the chances of something dying if you have chickens in the garden, small garden? You have some chances. But what are the chances of something dying if you have chickens, gardens, cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, cow, goose, guinea, and big gardens? What are the chances? Yeah, with success and expansion and growth comes failure. You should only fill this up about halfway with grains. It helps. Put another scoop in. Okay. Put too much grain in there, there won't be any water left. It'll soak up all the water. You want there to be water left because that's where the impurities go from soaking of the grain. You're breaking down the anti-nutrients for it to be more digestible. And just yesterday, someone texted me in the member area and their cow is struggling major and may die. And we're trying to help them as best we can. They're in conversations with their vet. They're doing all they can, but that kind of stuff happens. So my heart goes out to them. I want everybody out there to know You're not alone. Bad things happen on the farm. It's not your fault. Can you learn from it and do better the next time? Absolutely. Did you maybe make a mistake? Absolutely. But not always. And even if you made a mistake, is it your fault? No. I think you're doing the best you can. That's a happy crew. Hope you didn't turn this on. Uh-oh! Flour in your hair. Making breakfast. I heard that you made breakfast. No. Show me what you made. I made bacon and eggs. Bacon and eggs? And Mom's setting out blueberries. And you made tea. I'll tell you what, there's nothing like coming in from working hard on chores to a hot breakfast. I want to add a little something here at the end of the vlog. Rebecca and I are looking forward to going to the Homesteaders of America conference in October, about an hour out of Washington, DC. It's going to be exciting because it's a place where fellow homesteaders can go and learn from other homesteaders and farmers. And we can hang out physically with like-minded folks. It's going to be good. I got good news about that. The director, Amy Foole, has given me 3 tickets to give away absolutely free to the live, in-person, all-weekend event. So I'd love for you guys to join us. Some of you are on a tight budget. Maybe you can win this. So 3 winners, they each get 1 ticket. Plus, I don't want anybody to lose. I guess it's that kind of contest, and more of you are going to enter than win. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm doing a talk there on Intro to Permaculture, Your Best Homestead Ever. I'm going to give you guys a sampling of that. We're working on that presentation now. I will give you a sample of it soonish, probably within a week or so. So check out that contest, it's really cool. The more you share it, the more points you get. Subscribe to YouTube, follow us on Instagram, you get more points. And it increases your chances of winning. So check that out, it's down in the description. I'll link that contest plus the Homesteaders of America conference if you're just interested in going or finding out more. I'll link that down in the description too. So check it out, I hope to see you guys there.