Dreams DO come True ~ AGAIN

It's over here somewhere.

You got his shoes?

I'll get his shoes on.

We got you, buddy. We got you. Calm down, calm down.

We got time. Come here.

Cow!

Come out. You want to see the cow? Okay, well, we will, we will. Friday was the big day. The cow was going to come. I, being the manager of all this, was extremely nervous. I don't know exactly what I was nervous about. I I guess I was nervous, you know, you're meeting new people, you're meeting a new cow. Are they gonna be able to back down in there? How is she gonna be? Is she gonna be what we expected? All these things ran through my mind.

I wanna swim!

Is it cold out there?

No, not that cold. So we cleaned up, we ate dinner, we cleaned up, we watched a movie. Then we watched it for a little while, and then we heard— I heard two cows. I mean, I heard two calves, and one was the cow and one wasn't. I don't need that jacket. Yes, you do. It's cold.

We're getting the cow out.

When the cow came, we went downstairs. We went in and they got it out of the trailer and walked it down to the stall, and we got to pet it and feed it.

Come on, come on, there you go. Good girl. When she got here, one thing that surprised me and pleased me is that they, before we could even quite all get out there, they were leading the cow off the trailer. It was a 9-day difference. From Stud Muffin, who we had to back up, had no leverage. You get in there, push it, push it, push it, push it, push it, push it, push it. Had to back up right to the stall, so there was no leeway because he was— he's so, you know, he's unhandled and she's so handled. They unload her in a strange place and walk her down into the stall. Look at this, this is nice. Wow. Yeah, their hay's in the corner there. Do you want to show it to her? Look at this. Oh wow, she lets him right come right to him.

I just don't want to.

Oh, Sarah, first time I tried to pet her was crazy.

Why was it crazy?

I don't know.

She's right at home there, isn't she? She is. You were giving her some fresh grass. You my friend? She says thank you. Yeah. You're a gentle one.

Could you hold this? I can.

Okay.

The next day we went out to walk the cow and pet it and let it eat some grass.

We got your partner here last night, do you know it? She's two stalls down. She's gonna show you— she's gonna show you how we want you to get out into the— get out into the— I can't even finish my sentence. It's a rush when an animal that big gets that close to you. You don't know what he's thinking inside of that big brain. Patience.

Let him—

okay, now I've got it filled up. We're just gonna put in the corner. Y'all stay in the station. Okay, see, wants to bust out. Hey buddy, I'm just gonna put your water in here, okay? Put your water in there. When I jump like that, he goes like— probably more like, I'm here, don't come too close, buddy.

All right, let's feed this thing.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I think getting this family cow the second time means so much because the first time we got a family cow, it was such a dream. It was such a long-term dream, and we gave it up. It was a great sacrifice. I think it represented all that we sacrificed to go on the Great American Farm Tour. And so, and the fear of, you know, when we come back, we're going to be able to get started. So to be able to come back and get started on cows again, to come full circle, and to know that we didn't just destroy that dream, that we were able to achieve it again, means so much to us. It means that we can achieve— the dreams can come true again, a second time. They have. Hey Violet. Hey Violet. Let her get used to me. Wow, you do just let people walk up to you and pet you, don't you? Kind of weird being in here though. This is where Willow used to be. Good morning Willow and Norris. Norris, how you doing over there, buddy?

Puppy, will we come in?

Not yet. I'm gonna bring her out.

It feels exciting to be getting a cow again because we haven't had our own dairy for, gosh, like a really long time. April of 2016.

Be careful, guys. I'm just gonna put her right here. Okay? Okay. Um, maybe we should—

No push.

Hold on.

Give her a raise.

I feel like we need to put her somewhere where we have more room. What are you telling me, Jonah?

Papa!

What?

I like it right here, we can be all in the stanchion.

You want to put her in the stanchion?

Yeah. No, we can be right here.

Oh, that's fine, okay.

About— Jonah was a baby. We went over to our friend's house, the Tuckers, and she is— my friend Shauna is the one who introduced me to raw dairy. Had never even heard of that. So when we went over there, I had been reading a book and I was talking about raw dairy, and we kind of joked, oh, we have some acreage, we could get a cow. And that kind of like spawned the hope of one day having a dairy cow for me. I don't think it did for Justin. I think he was like not excited that, that my friend was talking to me about raw milk. In the, in the sense that we would get our own cow. He was okay with me buying raw dairy, but us not producing it ourselves, I think, at that point. And that— it was probably 9 years ago that I had that discussion with her. And so then when we got our first cows It was super emotional because it was like, at that point it had been like a 7-year dream or a 6-year dream for me to get dairy animals. So it was like, 'cause you don't just go buy a dairy animal, you know, you have to have infrastructure, you have to have money. And so we had those things. 6 years later after I had first talked about that with my friend. And so it was exciting to finally have what I'd been dreaming about for so long.

Talk about, uh, real quick about how— why you gave that up and how exciting it is to get it back.

Well, we gave up our cows to go on the Great American Farm Tour. So are you sad?

I felt like I had my sad moment yesterday, and I've had my sad moments before. Yeah. But dude, here comes the truck. I'm gonna cry.

This is it for sure.

Aww. Yep, here comes the truck. That's when the reality hits. Yeah. When they get in the trailer. It's okay, precious girl. They're gonna be nice, okay?

And you're gonna have Nick.

You and Nick are going together. Yeah, we're so happy that you are going with Nick. You guys are buddies. Yeah, she's gotten gentle here towards the end too. She likes to get a cheek rub.

It was really bittersweet because it had been such a, such a long dream for us and a sacrifice, and it was really hard. I mean, there was, at one point I was like, we're either crazy or dumb. This is like, why did we do this? And I'm really— I mean, I'm thankful that we did it because now I feel like we have a better understanding of what we need to do to have our own dairy cows at home. And I'm— yeah, it was, it was a really hard decision.

Uh, yeah, just give me one second. Okay, yeah, feed her the grass.

No, boy, eat the grass.

She's not sure what, what to do. There you go, there you go.

That's how hard for her. I can eat some real bad.

Okay, she likes that.

How could she eat like without dropping it?

I guess she's good, man. That tongue's like a magnet. Hey, uh, Violet, you ready to go out in the field today? Got some grass on its stem. How much do you enjoy petting her?

A bunch.

Okay guys, I think we should take her in. Hopefully we can. You can't give her candy and then take her back to broccoli, the dry hay. She said nope. She said nope. I was having fun. I was having fun. Okay. Oh, they could have— now they could have never done this with Willow. We appreciate how handled this cow is. I would have never done that with Willow unless there was a fence around. Look, she's letting them bring up— she's letting a 10-year-old bring her back in from eating candy from the candy shop. She says, I don't know. Give her time, she's pooping. Oh, give her time. Now this is fun. A big friendly animal gonna give us manure, gonna give us milk and cheese and cream and yogurt. Oh my, mow our grass, improve our soil. Here, here, let's see how they react to each other. Hey, hey, back up, Lily, just in case he gets crazy. Oh, he don't even care, he's eating. All right, walk her through. Go through, Lily. On Saturday, the big deal was getting Stud Muffin out of the stall, getting her out of the stall, getting them on grass, seeing how they react to each other. We've got our lane to the pasture up, we've got a grazing area ready for them. Now what we want to do is train— what we want to do is train Violet so she knows what to do. We'll take her back back and forth a couple of times, and then we'll let her go, and then we'll let Stud Muffin go. You poor thing, you've been in here too long, buddy. You need some sun to shine. You guys leashing her up? Yep, she's liking her hay. That's good. Now that you've brought her out once, go do it again.

Come on, boy.

That pasture's glad to see that again. Take her, uh, take her in and then we'll take her out again.

Oh my.

All right, take her out, take her out, take her out again, out to the pasture.

He's munching on everything.

All right, go do it one more time. We, um, practiced with her going back and forth because she's the tame one. She needs to be the leader. The third time we let her go. Okay, I know you're gonna be fine, Violet. It's the big guy I'm worried about. Can you show him the ropes? Can you show him? Can you show him how to get out into the field? Okay, honey, go where you want to go. Go ahead. Go ahead, sweetie. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. There you go. There you go. Go ahead, honey. There you go. Show them how to do it, okay? Now here we go. Here we go, boys. Come on, Stud Muffin, come on! I thought Stud Muffin— I thought Stud Muffin would be ready to roll. Come on, he ain't coming. Come on, come on, get out of there! Here he comes, there he goes, there he goes. And that's nerve-wracking. He came out and looked at me and ain't nothing between me and him. Oh, there he's got Got his first taste of electricity. That's good. He took forever getting out. He was nothing like our bull before, Nick, who I remember the first time we opened his stall, he just jetted right out. He put his nose on that electric fence. He finally saw Violet. It was funny because he walked up to her and, uh, she kind of went for him, like they're gonna decide who's boss. And he just kind of went— and I thought, oh no, what are we gonna have, somebody gonna get stabbed? But no, she just backed up real quick, and it took about 2 seconds for them to establish the pecking order, so to speak. Oh, look, the lovebirds meet. Oh, look, they gotta figure out who's boss. That didn't take very long. And then they had their little kisses and their little hugs and their little getting acquainted with each other in their weird cow way. We got love that will never need to hide. Love will always last. They are. If I am yours and you are mine.

The first time the cows saw each other, they smelled each other.

It's quite the greeting, smell each other's behinds. And it's like they've been together all the time. The problem is she knows what to do, he doesn't, but he's in the way. Come on, come on, come on, come on, go! There you go. Good boy, good boy. Not that way, stud. Not that way. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Ah, that's not hot. He's very— he's very— oh, come on, you know what to do, Violet. There you guys go. You're right, stud. You're right, muffin. You're right, buddy. There you go. Good boy. Good boy. You got it. You don't like your fence, buddy? You're gonna learn it real quick. Well, they're in, grazing in the sunshine.

I'm so excited about the cow because it's gonna have calf. It's gonna have calves, milk. Cheese and cream. She snorted at me one time. Yeah, like little hair right here, like a little, like a little dew. I hope to get milk and a calf.

He's gonna need some milk.

He's licking her all over.

I'm afraid about why a cub would get milk when we have a calf.

Now that we have 2 cows back on our farm, it feels good. It feels like the way it's supposed to be. Like when we were home and we didn't have any animals besides 3 chickens, it just felt weird. It didn't feel— it didn't feel right. Now it feels right.

I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did. We enjoyed living that, we enjoyed making that movie. Now if you guys are interested in keeping a family cow and you want more instructional, let's start with why keep a family cow. Beauty and I had a conversation about that. It's almost 20 minutes long. We put it in our Do It Yourself Abundance member area. I encourage you to check that out. I'll leave the link right there and down in the description. More than just cows in there, more than just why keep a family cow. All kinds of cow stuff, all kinds of chicken stuff, all kinds of garden stuff. More permaculture design stuff coming. It's absolutely incredible. Over probably over 60 videos at this point, plus a private Facebook group where we can get in and just not feel so crazy, talk about this stuff, help each other. It's a lot of fun. I encourage you guys, check it out if you're interested in more do-it-yourself kind of instructional type of stuff.