Fans Experience My Life (for a morning)

Happy Sunday seed day! We got an exciting, unpredictable one today. We've got to separate some sheep and some cows away from the main herd so they don't get bred early and stunt themselves forever. The 3 little pigs are in desperate need of a move, and the garden is sneaking ahead of us in these warm, rainy spring days. And there's some very special guests Timeout real quick. Today's vlog was filmed 1 week ago, but today, the day of this publish, it's Mother's Day. So happy day to all you lovely ladies giving birth to the world. Quick story. Jonah, our oldest, mama labored naturally in the hospital, but it ended up in emergency cesarean section. Josiah was born probably about right here on the floor in our old living room. Billy was born right there. Where our bed used to be. She was born on the bed. Gideon was born in the tub. The tub wasn't there. It was somewhere right— somewhere in there. Henry, mom labored at home. We had to transfer to the hospital, but he was born on the way at a gas station. He's out, Rebecca. He's out. All that to say is something interesting about Rebecca. Is she'll tell you she can be one of the most fearful, timid person that we know, but she never let it— she never lets that stop her for accomplishing her goals or deep desires. She pushes through. Just because you might be afraid of something doesn't mean you can't tap into courage and be brave. Henry, I want to ask you something. What? What's your middle name? Henry what? Rose? Henry Rose? Henry Brave Rhodes? What's your middle name?

Henry Brave Rhodes.

That's right. You know why we named you Brave? Why? Because your mama is so brave, and we hope that one day you too will also be brave. All you ladies, birthing is wonderful. It's a miracle. It's rewarding, but it is also frightening and difficult, but you do it anyway. So I want to say a special Happy Mother's Day. For Mother's Day, we have a movie on Rebecca's story of giving birth from Jonah all the way to Henry. We have a whole documentary. It's Rooted episode 2 and 3. That is on Abundance Plus. That is available on a free trial. We're giving you 25% off should you choose to stay on your first payment, just with offer code MOTHERS. So happy special Mother's Day. That would be a great movie to sit down and watch with your families tonight. Austin Roll-A-Trailer.

I was pushed into an OR and they said, get on the table. And I crawled onto the table and they strapped me down. And then there was people talking in my face like, we're going to do this and this and this. And I was like, how is this going to end? How is this going to end? I don't know how this is going to end. I don't know how this is going to end. At the expense of having a child, you have to kind of sacrifice yourself and your own health.

She has this uncanny ability to push through fear to get what she wants. Man, that's pretty good. Get in, we gotta go, let's go! Our special guests will be here in about 15 minutes. We should get like the, the buckets of feed ready and stuff so they're not just standing around watching us, and they get to actually do something. Uh-oh, we got a heifer in heat next to He-Man, which is our bull. We don't want him to breed her because she's not old enough yet, and if that happens, she'll be stunt— she'll be stunted. So he's acting crazy, he's knocking waters over, knocking her. We've got to get them— the heifer out. They're way down there, so we got to get them across the creek in the 2 acres, he may pick up on her smell every once in a while but not nearly as much, and he won't be able to see her, and that should help. She said I should get Ike, our ram sheep, out of there because we don't want him to breed the young ladies because we are growing them up— and the boys too, he's not going to breed them— to the harvest. We don't want to harvest pregnant sheep. Why does that mean there's poop in our shop? Well, that's just He-Man. Acting crazy, knocking the waters over because you can't get to this lady, and everybody getting out and somebody pooping, getting in the shop and pooping there. That reminds me, I'm breaking the rules. Supposed to keep this door closed anyway, keep the barn swallows out. We have some guests coming today, they're going to want the farm experience. I guess collecting buckets of feed and cleaning up cow poop is part of the farm experience, but you know what I mean. Looks like the rogue cows knocked over the pig feed. I got that up-ish. Some rogue chicken will clean that up for us. That's the 80/20 rule applied to farming. 20% of our effort picked up 80% of that mess, and it would take 80% of our effort to pick up the remaining 20%, so we're just gonna Leave it. We do not want a cow in the house. No. Learning I need to double my size of paddock for the Three Little Pigs if I'm gonna keep them in one spot. So, two nets. Look at all this peach fuzz rye coming in. Look, the pigs are doing a wonderful job. Look how they've tilled this. All right, then we move them out, smooth up behind them, and plant our cover crops. And looky here, looky here. But y'all need much more. You guys, you guys did this in like 2 days, I think. Be a really fun job for our guests. They would really enjoy this. I'm gonna contact Heather and make sure they are still coming. That's sad. I really look forward to this. The reason I'm thinking Are they coming? 7:30. Usually folks are early because they underestimate, or they want to make sure, you know, we're out in the country, they want to give themselves ample time to get here on time. But they do have 5 kids, so I know how that goes. I'm not gonna just keep standing here. We got work to do. Let's hope they come. It's gonna be an exciting day. And if they don't, we've got you guys. We got you guys. 20, 40,000 people watch these. Thank you guys so much for joining us every day, and this makes it less lonely. Just got a text back from Heather. As far as she knows, our guests are still coming. They're probably just arriving late. They confirmed with them last week, so let's hope. There are two things I definitely encourage when you venture on this homesteading lifestyle, which can be lonely, and one is to start sharing your journey. Online through social media. It's wonderful. The comments, the kind words, the just resonating with other people and just building community that way is amazing. Whether you end up going to monetize it one day or not, I think it would still be worth it just to share your journey. Secondly, share your journey in real person. That's what we're doing today. It's just so meaningful when somebody comes and you get to show them and talk and you're in real time. You talk and they talk. They ask questions, you ask questions. You can do this with your friend network. You don't have to have a large audience to do this. It happens, and it can be one of the most wonderful things for loneliness and encouragement in your homestead journey, which can be difficult oftentimes. Speaking of which, is that them? Can they fit 5 people in that truck? I thought they had 5 kids. How do you fit all 5 people in there? 5 kids? Uh, well, we got 5 seats and I guess everybody just gets close. Did you bring all 5 of them this morning? Well, 3 kids and— oh, okay, 5 of you. 5 altogether. 3 kids. Okay, okay, let's see if I get the names. Travis, Wesley, Jace, Nakeisha, and Aiden. Okay, I just learned them. Let's see if I can keep them by the end of the day. Okay. Hey, y'all ran off with my chicken feed. It's okay, y'all get to see the cows. Y'all got cows? We do. Yeah. Heck yeah. Milk cows or beef cows? Both. What? Well, then you go in there and milk. All right, since we're here, let's see if Honey's better about getting milked. She has been, but when they first have that calf and that calf's walking around, they don't want to stand still. How do you get them milked soon after they have the calf? I have a stanchion. Yeah, mine will just come right in. Yeah, I leave my calf put up. They're used to the stanchion. Well, my cow's half wild, so maybe yours is a little more tame. Uh, well, now when she's out like just walking around, she don't let you touch her. Okay, well, that's about like ours. All right, everybody's different, you know. Everybody's an individual. That reminds me of George Costanza last night said on Seinfeld, do chickens have individual personalities? They had like 5 chickens. Could you tell them apart just by the way they acted? Would they all just be walking around? Because if they have individual personalities, I'm not sure we should be eating them. Well, I got news for you, George. They have individual personalities, and of course we should eat them. Pals have individual personalities. They're individual. Should we eat them? We should. I saw a t-shirt that once said I love animals. They taste great. No, we like to label ours and we know, and we'll say we're gonna have Flossie for dinner. Yeah, and plus it tastes different too. Then, well, she's, she's standing there, the calf's running around, she don't care. You know what our number one job is as parents? Keep you alive. It's true. You know how the Bible says children obey your parents and you will live long? It's not some magical promise. It's that parents are just trying to keep you alive.

Learned a lot since becoming a mother and adult.

You kept them alive good so far.

Understand things a whole lot more than I did.

We're gonna go finish feeding the chickens, move the pigs when they get done milking, moving them on, moving the sheep, all flock— or that herd over. Youth group, I call them. You can be with them or you can come with us, it doesn't matter. You, if you want to stay with the boys, you can. If not, you can go with us. Wesley, right? Okay. Hey, you want to do a gas can? Yeah, we're dividing and conquering. They're doing the big animals, we're gonna go do the little animals. We gotta move up someone for the calf up. Calf started drinking it all. All right, we let the calf have her when it's first born, 24/7, until there's no milk in the morning. I want you to move that Pretty sure I'll have one link. Keisha, you want to bring that food? You, you fill their feeder. Don't forget to shut the door behind you. Don't ask me how I know that's a problem. So y'all pull them out, pull it out, get any eggs out from underneath them, get any— dump out any poop that might be in there. That's pretty clean. Move it one length, my man. Tell me how hard that is. How hard was that? That was hard. How old are you? Uh, 11. All right, see, 11-year-olds can do it. Hey, y'all got chickens?

Yeah, all kinds.

You know what that makes you? A chicken. He got it, he's been paying attention. These pigs have worked this up for us. They're helping us rebuild the soil after the hurricane. First thing we want to do is get this water empty. Oh, look at that drain! That way we don't have to push that big tub over. Patrick, give them a little feed in the middle. All right, so, uh, Travis, just get your pig feed. Let's get the shelter over. Let's get their minerals over. Who's got the pitchfork? See all this pig manure? Pigs like to poop in one place. Spread that manure love.

Okay.

And so take your pitchfork and put that manure in just different places around here. Wesley's ready. Wesley's ready. We could have dragged it over when we had it open, but we didn't. But y'all are young strapping men, you can do it. Now we're going to take this land and just flatten it out. See, this is, this is bumpy. This has got to be premium pasture, so we're going to just smooth this out. Bow rake. Shovel, whatever anybody can get. We're using a cover crop, things that grow good in a sandy soil, which is what this is after the hurricane washed away our soil. Rye mostly, hairy vetch, and some buckwheat. This is overwhelming to rebuild all this, but what makes it less overwhelming is the pigs go in here, keep them here a week, move them out, and then just do that job. What'd it take us, 30 minutes? We just raked this smooth. And to do that once a week, it's not nearly as— can you imagine if I was to go and, you know, rake it, you know, get it ready and supple for seeds? Well, we have the pigs doing that. We just have to time it. It would be an impossible job. So we do— we restore and rebuild one pig paddock at a time. We have got to get ahead of this before this gets ahead of us. We have got weeds coming up. You know, it's a little bit moist from it raining yesterday. This should be rather easy. There's 5 of you, get in, come help us please. Throwing all the weeds in the pigs, okay? So pile them up, throw them in the pigs. Almost through this We're gonna have to come back though. The weeds can wait, the heifer cannot. The boys have already started to move them. Got the heifer, she has to have a buddy, so we got the next— the smallest steer we have. Were they hard getting over the creek? All right, you guys have set this up fast. I would have thought y'all would have took your time since we're weeding after this. It's a 3-day paddock, right?

Yeah.

Okay, you got to move them at least every 3 days because after the 3rd day grass starts growing back. Hey, while we're over here, let's cover these bins of wood. Let's grab some tote covers, put them on it, and weigh it down with some of the wood that's there. These are just IBC totes, still intact, for bracing. We can move them around with the machines. What motivates y'all, two full-time working people, work— working hard, to drive 2.5 hours Come work on somebody else's farm on a Sunday.

Different scenery and you learn different tricks.

Yeah, this one, man, he knows. He, he foresees what needs to be done and starts doing it.

Are you gonna be a secret farmer? If he would just do it at our place. He does pretty good at the house.

Oh man, he, he— something's happened. He knows I'm weeding and I'm piling them up, for example, and he'll grab the piles of weeds and throw them in. That's good, that's a good worker. Kids have already disappeared in the forest. Come on, kids! Dream come true. Look at this nice family, hard workers. My kids, most of them anyway. We're gonna knock out some weeds. I feel really good about getting Minty away. It could really stunt her for them to get at each other. They have to get out of their fences, cross the creek, find each other, and break into another fence. It's very unlikely that somebody's going to break into a fence. Who said let's do that? Let's, let's start homesteading.

I personally prefer doing the canning. Yeah, things like that, rather than, I guess, all the hard work and planting it and— okay, making sure it grows. I would prefer to do the storage.

You're the preservation and the cooker. That's what I prefer. Okay, and what made you start it? I just enjoy doing it. Yeah, you like getting off work, going to work some more. Yeah. How long you been homesteading and working full-time? The last 4 years, I would imagine. What do you say to those young people who are just about to start on the journey? They got a full-time job, but they want to start homesteading. What would you tell them? It's rough, but if you really want you want it. Just, just do it. Just keep going.

I think I would say time management. Just kind of figure out what needs to be done first, and if you've got more than one person, kind of spread out and do different things.

Yeah, they can't possibly have enough time to do everything they want. None of us can. You know, have your goal and and then, then do the most important thing towards that. Hey, Bird, you here to help now? Yeah. All right, the goal is to weed these onions, garlic, and peas, and then we'll be done. It's just 10:30 and we're done with the onions. Many hands make light the work. So thankful for these guys. Can tell you guys have had a hand on things. So we planted these a few weeks ago. Now it's time to kind of come help them a little bit. They're jamming. We knocked out those peas fast too. This is one of those days where— rare days where I underestimated the job. We're gonna get done early. What we've been doing is taking this— these leaves, compacted layers, and We're using it as mulch on these peas. Now we won't have as many weeds next time. And not all our strawberries made it, so we're going to take these ones that have runners. They have this runner. Well, let's put it in here. This one that didn't make it, start this runner towards a hole like this guy. You put it in there, that's good. And that one's going towards that hole. That's got little tiny nodes on it. He's saying it's ready, and you'd cut it at the bottom, not right up here at it, huh? You guys made a friend. It's the least I can do. Let me give you guys some tomatoes. Travis, you're the tomato eater. I am. Okay, what do you like to make with them? Um, tomato sandwiches, ketchup, tomato soup, anything tomato. Oh, we're not gonna be able to pull them away. Goodbye. Good luck with the tomatoes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the help. Oh, American— hey, you know what? If you've got a chicken on your shirt, you might just be a crazy chicken lady. Yes, American chick. Yes. All right, Patrick, thank you. Yes sir, enjoy those tomatoes. All righty, we will. The ride home, it's a beautiful day. Thanks for having us drive. Thanks, my man. You're a good helper. See ya. You've been good help, we appreciate it. Aiden, um Don't tell me I kept calling you Patrick. Travis. I keep thinking Patrick. Nakisha, Wesley, and Jace. Bye-bye.

Bye, thanks for having us.

All right, what a blessing those people are. What a cool— I had the coolest audience. You all are just also amazing. So many people like, like those guys. Come see us. This is available for free for Abundance Plus members. You just join Abundance Plus, abundanceplus.com. And you get all the benefit of memberships, plus you can come see us first of the month. So come see us— when would it be, Lily? Well, first Sunday of the month, so June. Let's see you guys in June. What are you cooking? Leftover meatloaf, acorn squash. You did good, bud. Thanks. Good job moving the cows. This afternoon, a live webinar, Albin's Plus. A special guest, Anna from Fermented Homesteaded. Look her up right now on YouTube. Thank you, Anna, for doing this presentation. It's gold, teaching us what, why, and how fermenting.

And then you're just going to kind of stir it a bit.

This is like behind the scenes. She's, she's live right now doing a cooking show, fermenting cabbage, almost like sourdough.

Hopefully you guys can see this okay.

This replay will be up by the time this comes out on Abundance Plus if you want to catch it.

Um, so that it— the salt can extract the liquid and just beat this stuff to death for like 10 minutes. It's very common.

Webinar went fantastic. Let's do some smash burgers. These are half lamb, half pork. I dare say I've never done a smash burger, but I like the thought of it because I like a thin burger. I like more fried surface. Also, mom's feeling under the weather, wants some chicken soup. No worries, we got our fat old lady hands. Canned. First time using them. Smells good. You put a cup of broth in that mixed vegetables. Oh man, burgers are coming up along nicely. Mom's soup too, added 2 cups of broth. There's your soup, Dar.

Thank you.

First time eating the chicken broth soup. Are those fat old lady hands nourishing you back to health? I'd say it was good. Happy day. Happy day.